Parental responses to children's pain : Analysis of the parental responses to their child's pain in the German general population

Parental reactions to their child's pain can comprise cognitive-affective and behavioral responses. Dysfunctional responses like parental catastrophizing may lead to an aggravation of the child's pain. Aims of the online-based study were (1) to psychometrically evaluate existing questionnaires into cognitive-affective (Pain Catastrophizing Scale for Parents; PCS-P) and behavioral responses (Inventar zum schmerzbezogenen Elternverhalten; ISEV-E) within a sample of 105 healthy parents, and (2) to compare their responses to existing (inter)national clinical samples and to the reactions of 80 parents with self-reported chronic pain from the general population. The assessment of parental pain-related reactions was online-based. While the factor structure of the ISEV-E could not be replicated, the three factors of the PCS-P could be replicated. Parental catastrophizing of the healthy parents was lower compared to clinical samples. Healthy parents did not differ from parents with chronic pain from the general population. The results offer a basis to grade parental catastrophizing, so that risk-groups can be identified.