Parent and Child Everyday Pain Study

Young children experience an ‘everyday’ pain event (bumps, scrapes, etc.) approximately every three waking hours!
Pain is an integral part of children’s everyday experience and children mainly depend upon their parents for help and care during these events. We need to understand how parents and their children react to each other during and after their child goes through one of those everyday tumbles or short painful experiences that happen while playing.
Specifically, we want to understand how parents and children respond to pain, by asking parents to complete a pain diary each day for two weeks for a pain event that their child experienced. This will help us understand better how children learn to cope and recover from pain. That is where you and your child come in!

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1. Parents will be asked to complete a short pain diary each day for two consecutive weeks, to report on a pain event that their child experienced that day (14 pain entries in total). This will be completed online, and should not take longer than 5 minutes each day.
2. If families so choose, they can also complete a short assessment immediately after any pain event that occurs. This involves the child answering 2 questions about their pain, and the parent answering 3 questions about their child’s pain (up to a maximum of 5 assessments during the two week period). This will be completed online via the parent’s smartphone, and should take 2-3 minutes to complete each time.

Your total participation time for this study is 1.5 hours for the diary across the two week reporting period (plus 15 minutes for the assessments if also completing those).

To thank you for your participation, your child will receive a Junior Scientist certificate, and you will have the option to enter a draw for a €50 voucher (separate to entries for the diary and assessments).

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To take part, there are three separate links. 

Each family must complete a Demographic questionnaire once at the start of the study. In it, you will be asked to confirm your consent to participate in this research study. It is important to know that you are free to withdraw from this study at any time by emailing g.osullivan6@nuigalway.ie,  without needing to give a reason:
Demographic Questionnaire

The Daily Pain Diary should then be completed by a parent each day for two consecutive weeks (5 mins):
Diary Link

The Immediate Pain Assessment can be completed after any pain event occurs, and needs to be filled in by the parent and the child together (2-3mins):
Pain Assesment Link

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