Children's strategies for coping with pain

Abstract

Children's typical modes of responding to stress influence their ability to manage painful events. Coping skills mediate a child's response to pain that is associated with illness, injuries, and medical procedures. A number of factors can influence children's use of coping skills and their adaptation responding to pain, including cognitive-developmental level, previous experiences with painful events and children's belief in their ability to tolerate pain, parental support, and the extent to which the pain is acute or chronic and perceived as controllable by the child. There has been recent progress in the assessment of children's coping with distressing and/or painful experiences. Research in this area is providing a foundation upon which interventions can be tailored to a particular child's specific needs to assist him or her in the management of pain.