Background: School absenteeism and other impairments in school function are significant problems among children with chronic pain syndromes; yet, little is known about how chronic pain is perceived in the school setting. The purpose of this study was to examine teachers' attributions about the causes of chronic pain in adolescent students.…

Pain catastrophizing is generally viewed as an important cognitive factor underlying chronic pain. The present study examined personality and temperament correlates of pain catastrophizing in a sample of young adolescents (N = 132). Participants completed the Pain Catastrophizing Scale for Children, as well as scales for measuring sensitivity of…

Background: Meaningful communication with people with profound communication difficulties depends on the ability of carers to recognize and translate many different verbal cues. Carers appear to be intuitively skilled at identifying distress cues, but have little confidence in their observations. To help in this process, a number of pain tools…

This study examined the sensitivity and false-positive error rate of reliable digit span (RDS) and the WAIS-III Digit Span (DS) scaled score in persons alleging toxic exposure and determined whether error rates differed from published rates in traumatic brain injury (TBI) and chronic pain (CP). Data were obtained from the files of 123 persons…

Background: Pain interferes with the functioning of typical children, but no study has examined its effect on children with pre-existing intellectual disabilities (ID). Methods: Caregivers of 63 children observed their children for 2-h periods and recorded in 1-week diaries: pain presence, cause, intensity and duration. Caregivers also recorded…

Purpose: The purpose of this pilot study was to determine the reasons for which migrant agricultural workers in Pennsylvania seek health care. Methods: Participants were individuals 14 years of age and over, actively involved in agricultural labor and presenting for medical care at 6 migrant health care centers. Bilingual health care providers…

Mass psychogenic response (MPR), also referred to as epidemic hysteria, mass hysteria, or mass psychological illness, has been identified for over 600 years. MPR is a syndrome comprising a collection of symptoms, which are consistent with organic illness, but lack an identifiable cause, and which rapidly spread through socially connected groups…

Quality of life (QOL) has emerged over the past 20 years as an outcome for measuring the effectiveness of health-improvement interventions. The Cerebral Palsy Quality of Life Questionnaire for Children (CPQOL-Child) is well regarded and now integrated into research internationally. We describe the results of qualitative research, using grounded…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the impact of educating adolescents in practical ways of looking after their backs to reduce the incidence of back-pain, with particular focus on the use and carrying method of ergonomically designed schoolbags. Design/methodology/approach: An educational leaflet containing a range of back care…

Purpose: Our objectives are to present a conceptual model of the pain assessment process in persons with dementia and discuss methods for validating our model within this population. Design and Methods: This conceptual work is based on an integrative review and current pain theory, pain assessment research in demented and nondemented populations,…

The purpose of this study was to test a 2-factor model of affective health in women with rheumatoid arthritis (RA; n = 82) or osteoarthritis (OA; n = 88). Positive and negative social interactions and affect were assessed for 11 consecutive weeks. For each participant, Vulnerability and Resilience factors were created from factor analyses of…

Fibromyalgia (FM) is a disorder of unknown aetiology, characterized by chronic widespread pain, stiffness and sleep disturbances. In addition, patients frequently complain of memory and attention deficits. Accumulating evidence suggests that FM is associated with CNS dysfunction and with an altered brain morphology. However, few studies have…

To examine parent-professional agreement in proxy-reports of child quality of life (QoL) and the factors associated with low child QoL in children with cerebral palsy (CP) and associated intellectual impairment. Professional (teacher, therapist, or residential carer) and parent reports of QoL for 204 children (127 males, 77 females, mean age 10y…

When we attend to other people in pain, the neural circuits underpinning the processing of first-hand experience of pain are activated in the observer. This basic somatic sensorimotor resonance plays a critical role in the primitive building block of empathy and moral reasoning that relies on the sharing of others' distress. However, the…

The authors forward the hypothesis that social exclusion is experienced as painful because reactions to rejection are mediated by aspects of the physical pain system. The authors begin by presenting the theory that overlap between social and physical pain was an evolutionary development to aid social animals in responding to threats to inclusion.…