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BACKGROUND: We studied the relationship between children's and parents' sociodemographic and personality characteristics and parents' perceptions of their children's pain. METHODS: One-hundred-ten parents of children undergoing surgery completed measures of pain perception (e.g., Medication Attitude Questionnaire; MAQ) and parent and child personality characteristics (e.g., Neuroticism, Extraversion and Openness to experience Five-Factor Inventory; NEO-FFI). Factor analysis and logistic regression models were developed. RESULTS: In terms of pain medication perceptions (MAQ), descriptive analysis showed that more than 70% of parents feared side effects of analgesia, 43% thought analgesics were addictive, and 37% thought that the less often children receive analgesia, the better it worked. Factor analyses of the MAQ revealed a three factor solution explaining 52% of the variance in parental pain medication perceptions. Conceptually, these factors represented Appropriate Use Attitude of Analgesics, Concerns about Side Effects, and Avoidance of Analgesia. Stepwise regression models were used to identify predictors of parents' scores on each of the three factors. Results indicated that less educated parents and parents of more sociable and more reactive children were more likely to indicate that they would avoid giving analgesia (Avoidance factor; P < 0.001). Parents with higher conscientiousness scores (NEO-FFI) and those with more impulsive children were more likely to perceive that analgesia was appropriate to use for child pain (Appropriate Use Attitude factor; P < 0.001). DISCUSSION: We conclude that many parents have misconceptions of pain and analgesics, and that child and parent personality characteristics can be used to identify parents at risk of these misconceptions.
Each year, more than three million children undergo surgery in the United States and most of them experience pain and distress. Although the medical staff is responsible for administration of pain medication in the hospital, when the child recovers at home, medication is controlled by parents. Previous studies have indicated that, unfortunately, many parents do not adhere to the postoperative analgesia recommendations provided by their health care providers (15). For example, 50%60% of parents provided less than the prescribed number of analgesic doses (1,2,5). Further, up to 70% of the acetaminophen doses children received at home were subtherapeutic (based on 15 mg/kg), and 58.8% of the children received less than the recommended acetaminophen daily dose (60 mg·kg1·day1). Parents were also likely to administer less potent compounds than those prescribed (acetaminophen with no codeine rather than the prescribed combination), or to increase the time interval between analgesic doses (1,2,57). These practices are incongruent with the recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics indicating that early, effective management of pain is more successful than delayed management (8). The reasons behind parental undermedication of postoperative pain are not clear. Previous studies conducted with children undergoing elective surgery found that parents feared side effects of analgesics, were worried about future drug use or addiction, and believed that analgesia should be used only as a last resort (1,3,6,7,9). Further, parents thought that acetaminophen worked best if provided only when the pain was severe (9) and would not give analgesics before the onset of pain (6). Given that these misconceptions have been found to affect administration of pain medications (3), there is a clear need for educational efforts to address these beliefs. To better focus these effects, research should be conducted to identify parents most likely to have these misconceptions. Pain is a noxious stimulus that evokes responses that are influenced by multiple personality characteristics (1012). A child's temperament has been repeatedly shown to influence pain expressions in a variety of clinical settings (1218). For example, children who were rated as more active displayed more preoperative distress after blood sampling (15) and during immunizations (16), and children who were rated as more active demonstrated higher pain scores in the hospital after tonsillectomies (6). Therefore, it is not surprising that parents expect children with different behavioral styles or temperaments to express pain differently. Interestingly, there is little data regarding the effects of a child's temperament on parental pain perceptions and parental pain management and, thus, there is a need for such research. The purpose of this study is to examine parental perceptions about children's pain expression, pain management, and the consequences of untreated pain in children. This study further examines the relations among children's and parents' personality and sociodemographic characteristics and parental pain perceptions. The long-term goal of this research is to identify factors associated with misconceptions about pain, and to develop an intervention to address these misconceptions in parents.
The participants were a convenience sample of parents of healthy children aged 314 yr undergoing elective surgical procedures at a university hospital in the United States. Parents were approached and recruited on the day of surgery. After giving informed consent, parents completed the questionnaires listed below while in the preoperative waiting area. To ensure a full distribution of children's ages, a stratified approach was used and 3540 parents for each age group: 36.9 yr, 79.9 yr, and 1014 yr were recruited. The study was approved by the IRB and parents provided written informed consent.
Parental Pain Perceptions
Medication Attitude Questionnaire
Parental Pain Expression Perceptions
Child Personality Characteristics
Parental Personality Characteristics
The Neuroticism, Extraversion and Openness to experience Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI)
Miller Behavioral Style Scale
State-Trait Anxiety Inventory
Statistical Analysis To facilitate examination of the effects of sociodemographic and personality characteristic on parental pain perceptions, factor analysis was conducted as a preliminary step to reduce the dimensions of the pain perception instruments. The result of such a factor analysis is that clusters of highly correlated (and thus, in most cases, conceptually related) items are combined to form continuous scales. The attendant subscores reliably condense the useful information from the available data. For further information on factor analysis the reader is referred to http://www.ats.ucla.edu/STAT/spss/output/factor1.htm.
Stepwise linear regressions were conducted in the following manner. Separate stepwise regression analyses were conducted for each of the following combinations of dependent items on the MAQ and PPEP respectively. The dependent variables considered were the subscores on the perception measures produced by the factor analysis. The independent sociodemographic variables included were child age, child gender, parental and child previous surgical experience, a combination of parents' educational level, mother's age, and the number of hours the mother worked outside the home. The independent personality characteristic variables were the score on the trait anxiety measure, the subscores on NEO-FFI, the total score on the Miller MBSS measure and the child's subscores on the EASI measure. The inclusion criteria for variables were P value To ensure that the independent variables that were significantly correlated were not entered into the same model, the following steps were taken. Demographic variables were examined and, due to the high correlation between both parents' education levels, the education variable was combined for both parents. In other cases where demographic variables were highly correlated (e.g., education and household income), only one variable was incorporated into the model. Additionally, as state and trait anxiety scores in our population were significantly correlated (0.37, P value <0.001), we included each into the model separately and found similar findings. Given that trait anxiety is theoretically considered to be more of a personality measure than state anxiety, we chose to use STAI Trait as our predictor. For further information on stepwise linear regression the reader is referred to http://www.statsoft.com/textbook/stgrm.html#stepwise.
One-hundred-ten parents of children ages 314 yr (8.6 ± 3.6 yr) undergoing elective surgical procedures were recruited for this study. The majority of the children (51.7%) had orthopedic and ear-nose-and throat surgeries. A total of 73% of the families were Caucasian and 79% were in married/partnered families. Demographic characteristics of the sample and surgery distributions are presented in Table 1.
Phase One: Descriptive Analyses of Parental Pain Perceptions
Parental Pain Expression Perceptions
We also found in reviewing the answers to the freestanding questions that while most parents (89%) indicated that untreated pain can cause psychological damage, a smaller percentage of the parents (69%) thought that untreated pain can cause physical damage.
Phase Two: Factor Structure of Parental Perceptions
Parental Pain Expression Perceptions
Phase Three: Prediction of Parental Pain Perceptions
Parental Pain Expression Perceptions
The purpose of this study was to evaluate parental attitudes towards their children's pain and pain management, and to explore sociodemographic and personality predictors of these attitudes. We found that many parents in this study feared the side effects of analgesia, and some were concerned and uncertain about children's addiction to analgesia. We also found that some parent and child sociodemographic variables were related to parental perceptions of the provision of analgesia to children and children's pain expression. Parental and child personality characteristics also affected parental perceptions of analgesia. In terms of parental concerns regarding analgesia, it is possible that parents perform a skewed cost-benefit analysis. That is, parents may believe that the risks of under-treated pain do not outweigh the risks of medication side effects. Our finding that more than 30% of the parents thought that untreated pain does not cause physical damage supports this possible explanation. Surprisingly, some parents were uncertain about whether or not children feel less pain than adults. This finding reinforces the significant need to enhance parental knowledge with respect to children's pain. The findings that parents fear analgesia, and have negative perceptions regarding children's pain expressions, are reason for concern, especially in view of the recent increase of awareness of pediatric pain both in clinical settings and in the media. In terms of predicting attitudes toward pain and analgesia, our results indicated that parents with less education feared addiction and analgesic side effects more than parents with higher education. The explanation for this relation is unclear, but it is possible that less educated parents have less exposure to literature refuting the attitudes that analgesia is unsafe and addictive, and that less educated parents may have less access to information regarding the safety of analgesics. Parental coping scores affected the Side Effect factor of the MAQ. Parents with high monitoring scores (that is, parents who actively seek information and tend to be vigilant about their surroundings; 23) feared the side effects of analgesia less than parents who were low in monitoring. It is possible that parents who are monitors attend closely to information about analgesics and thus may be more likely to have learned that recommended analgesia is safe and that the benefits of analgesia outweigh the risks of its side effects. In the present study, parents with higher openness scores (NEO-FFI) were less concerned about side effects of analgesia as compared to those with lower openness scores. The elements of openness include intellectual curiosity, independent of judgment, and active imagination (22); therefore, it is not surprising that parents with these traits seek information and can more accurately weigh the risks and benefits of analgesia. Parents with high conscientiousness scores thought that analgesia was appropriate for use more than parents with low conscientiousness scores. Conscientious individuals are described as determined, punctual, and reliable, and high scores on conscientiousness are associated with academic and professional achievement (22). Therefore, it is expected that parents with high conscientiousness scores will follow the recommendation to provide the recommended analgesia. In addition to perceptions about analgesics, this study explored parents' perceptions of children's pain expression. Although child self-report is considered to be the "gold standard" of pain measurement in the literature, previous research has demonstrated that children do not always verbally express their pain to their parents (25). In line with these findings, most parents in this study agreed that children in pain may not report pain immediately and that "quiet" children can be in pain. More educated parents were less likely to think that children in pain always verbally informed their parents and that children primarily expressed pain primarily through Active, Loud Behaviors. Parents with higher neuroticism scores on the NEO-FFI endorsed beliefs that children expressed pain primarily through Active, Loud Behaviors, and scored higher on the Attention-Seeking factor (i.e., beliefs that children complain about pain to get attention and that children exaggerate pain). The elements of neuroticism include emotional stability and adaptability. People who score lower on the neuroticism scale tend to be more relaxed when faced with stressful situations, and therefore may be more able to be aware of subtle changes in their children's behaviors (e.g., quiet withdrawn behaviors). On the other hand, parents who score higher on neuroticism may become more upset when their child is in pain and may be less likely to recognize these changes as pain cues, therefore believing that children complain about pain to get attention and exaggerate their pain. Child temperament has been shown to affect how children express pain (6,1217). Therefore, it is not surprising that parents expect children with different behavioral styles or temperament to express pain differently. In this study, parents of more impulsive children expected children to express pain through active and loud behaviors such as crying, and believed that children complain about pain to get attention and that children exaggerate pain. Several limitations of this study should be noted. First, we examined a convenience sample of parents of healthy children undergoing elective surgery in one hospital, and therefore the generalizability of these findings may be limited. Additionally, we did not stratify our data based on parent and child past surgical experience or type of surgery that the child was undergoing while the parents completed the questionnaires. Prior surgical experience had no affect on parental pain perceptions. Future studies are needed to evaluate the effects of these variables on actual parental pain management practices at home. Nonetheless, this study is the first to examine the effect of both parent and child characteristics on parental perception of pain expression and pain management. We suggest that the various personality predictors for parents who are more concerned with analgesics use should be incorporated in any future educational intervention.
The authors thank Dr. Jane Dixon for factor analysis consultation, Dr. Kristopher Fennie and Dr. Michael F. Dowd for the statistical consultation and assistance, Mr. Tony Ma for his assistance with managing the data, the staff of the Perioperative Center at YNHH and the participants of this study for their help and support of this research project.
Accepted for publication December 28, 2006. Support by the Yale School of Nursing grant T32NR008346, and the National Institute of Child and Health Diseases (Bethesda, MD) grant NIH-2R01HD037007-04A1.
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