Pediatric Sickle Cell Disease and Parent and Child Catastrophizing

摘要

Pain catastrophizing is poorly understood in children and adolescents with sickle cell disease (SCD) and their parents. The objectives of this study were twofold: 1) to evaluate the interplay between parent and child pain catastrophizing and its effect on disability among youth with SCD, and 2) to evaluate whether child pain catastrophizing served as a mechanism that explained the relation between pain and functional disability within the context of varying levels of parent pain catastrophizing. One hundred youth (8-18 years old) with SCD and parents completed measures of pain characteristics (pain frequency and intensity), catastrophizing (Pain Catastrophizing Scale), and the outcome of functional disability (Functional Disability Inventory) in a cross-sectional study. Youth with low levels of catastrophizing showed high levels of disability in the presence of high levels of parent catastrophizing. Additionally, child pain catastrophizing was a significant mechanism that partially explained the effect of higher pain frequency and pain intensity on greater levels of disability, but only at low levels of parent pain catastrophizing. High levels of parent catastrophizing and incongruence between child and parent catastrophizing contributes to poorer functional outcomes in youth with SCD.