Influence of Social Modeling and Learning on Somatic, Emotional and Functional Disability in Children with Headache

Background. Several studies evidenced an influence of parental pain variables on the child’s processing of pain. Method. In two successive annual waves, children and parents (n = 1803 at first assessment) were questioned about headaches and various pain-related variables. Parent-child associations concerning pain catastrophizing and pain avoidance behavior were examined in a cross-sectional design. Using hierarchical regression analyses, pain catastrophizing of parent and child, their interaction and parental pain avoidance behavior were examined as predictors of headache-related somatic, emotional and functional disability in the child one year later. Results. Results demonstrated significant but moderate parent-child concordance in pain catastrophizing and pain avoidance behavior. Regression analyses revealed pain catastrophizing in the child as a significant predictor for all disability variables in both boys and girls. In contrast, parental pain catastrophizing had low predictive power, only for some of the dependent disability variables and depending on the sex of the subsample. In boys and girls, parental pain avoidance behavior was a significant but weak predictor only for functional disability. Conclusions. Data suggest a low influence of pain-related social learning mechanisms in this population-based sample. This result may be ascribed to the generally rather low level of headaches and related disability.