Family-Related Factors in Children and Adolescents With Chronic Pain: A Systematic Review

Background

The aim of this systematic review is to synthesise the findings about the role of family-related factors in chronic pain in children and adolescents.

Methods

We conducted a search of the following electronic databases: PubMed/MedLine, CINHAL, PsychINFO, PubPsych, Scopus and Web of Science from inception to July 2024. We only included studies involving children and adolescents (up to 19 years old) with chronic pain and studies that involved the parents or families of these children.

Results

A total of 24,049 articles were retrieved, of which 20,921 were screened for evaluation and 119 were included in the review.

Conclusions

Most of the studies were cross-sectional with a moderate or high risk of bias, reporting on the parenting individual-, dyadic-, and contextual-related factors. In the included studies, significant associations emerged between a number of family-related factors and chronic pain and related disability in 16 of the 119 studies that had been judged to be of good methodological quality.

Significance

The data from these studies showed significant associations between parental individual variables (e.g., parent's mental health), dyadic variables (e.g., parental responses towards their children's pain), and context-related variables (e.g., family functioning), and some key pain-related outcomes, including pain chronification, pain intensity, pain frequency, pain extent, pain-related interference, the ability to cope with chronic pain, and pain-related disability in children and adolescents. Therefore, these factors may be important targets for the prevention and management of chronic pain in children and adolescents.