Article Text

Download PDFPDF
Review: psychological interventions reduce the severity and frequency of chronic pain in children and adolescents

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request Permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.


 
 QUESTION: In children and adolescents with chronic pain and associated distress and disability, are psychological interventions effective for reducing the frequency and severity of pain?

Data sources

Studies were identified by searching the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register, Medline (1966–99), PsycLIT (1987–99), EMBASE/Excerpta Medica (1980–99), and the Social Sciences indices (1981–99). Bibliographies of relevant articles were reviewed and experts in the field contacted for additional studies.

Study selection

Studies were selected if they were randomised controlled trials (RCTs) comparing a clearly defined psychological treatment for chronic pain in children and adolescents (even when this treatment was concomitant with other non-psychological treatments given as standard care) with a control condition (including waiting list and self monitoring controls).

Data extraction

Data were extracted on study setting, sample size, demographic characteristics of the …

View Full Text

Footnotes

  • Source of funding: no external funding

  • For correspondence: Dr C Eccleston, University of Bath, Bath, UK. c.eccleston{at}bath.ac.uk

  • A modified version of the abstract appears in Evidence-Based Nursing.