Commentary: Parent-child interactions during painful medical procedures: recommendations by Blount and colleagues (1991) have not fallen on deaf ears!

Abstract

The article by Blount and colleagues (1991) has played a prominent role in laying the foundations for furthering our understanding of the role in of the social context in children’s pain experiences. Blount and colleagues (1991) demonstrated that adult’s responses to child pain differ depending on children’s level of coping behavior, with no differences observed for children’s responsiveness to parents versus staff behaviors. These findings as well as their rigorous methodological approach, substantially influenced research and clinical practice on the social context of pediatric pain experiences during medical procedures. The two main recommendations the authors made, i.e. systematic replication of their findings and the need for evidence-based training programs, did not fall on deaf ears and have received substantial research attention in the past 30 years. This commentary will focus on providing a summary of how the evidence base on parent-child interactions during painful procedures has evolved since this publication, with a focus on the inclusion of non-verbal behavior due to the availability of video recordings. This will be followed by a discussion on how this growing evidence base influenced the design and evaluation of pain management interventions for acute pediatric pain experience, ranging from localized interventions to wide-reaching social media initiative. The commentary will end with future directions for research and clinic practice within this field.