title: Maternal pain influences her evaluation of recurrent pain in 6- to 11-year-old healthy children.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Children with recurrent pain rely on their parents to acknowledge it. We compared pain reported by healthy children and their mothers, to evaluate their agreement, and also looked at the effect of maternal health on children's pain.
  
  
  METHODS
  This was a cross-sectional questionnaire-based survey in Danish public schools. The participants were 131 healthy children aged 6-11 years and their mothers. The main outcome measures were the prevalence of recurrent pain reported by the mother and child, agreements between their reports and any associations between the child's pain, socio-demographic characteristics and maternal health factors.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Recurrent pain was reported by nearly one-third (31%) of the children and their mothers. A quarter (25%) of the mother-child pairs disagreed on the existence of pain in the child, and a third (33%) disagreed on the frequency and duration. When the data were adjusted for child characteristics and socio-demographic parameters, mothers who had chronic pain were five times more likely to report frequent pain in their children than mothers without pain. This is a new finding.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Maternal health factors may influence her evaluation of her child's pain. Family health and pain behaviour should be considered when recurrent pain is suspected in a child.
authors.affiliation: Research Unit for General Practice and Section of General Practice, Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.|The University Clinic of Primary Health Care, Copenhagen, Denmark.
authors.forename: Anette Hauskov
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Graungaard
authors.affiliation: Research Unit for General Practice and Section of General Practice, Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
authors.forename: Volkert
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Siersma
authors.affiliation: Research Unit for General Practice and Section of General Practice, Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
authors.forename: Kirsten
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Lykke
authors.affiliation: Research Unit for General Practice and Section of General Practice, Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
authors.forename: Ruth Kirk
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Ertmann
authors.affiliation: Section of Environmental Health, Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
authors.forename: Lisbeth E
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: Knudsen
authors.affiliation: Section of General Practice, Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.|Finnish Office for HTA (FINOHTA), National Institute of Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Marjukka
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mäkelä
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D000068097:Maternal Health; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D010146:Pain / Q000523:psychology*; D012008:Recurrence; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: Childhood pain; Chronic pain; Maternal health; Mother-child relationships; Recurrent pain