Sensitivity to Pain Traumatization and Its Relationship to the Anxiety-Pain Connection in Youth with Chronic Pain: Implications for Treatment

Daily health and well-being in adulthood and old age: The role of adverse childhood experiences

How susceptible our daily affect is to fluctuations in physical health indicates how well we adapt to everyday health challenges. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are known to have a lasting impact on everyday emotion regulation and adaptation across the lifespan, but less is known about whether and how such adversity is linked to the susceptibility of affect to everyday health challenges. This study therefore tested whether ACEs were associated with daily reports of positive and negative affect and examined weather they moderated emotional reactions to daily physical symptoms in adulthood and old age. We used data from the National Study of Daily Experiences 2 (NSDE-2) in which middle-aged and older adults (N = 2,022; Mage = 56 years; range: 33-84) reported symptoms and affect on eight consecutive evenings. Multi-level models indicated that cumulative ACEs as well as two individual childhood adversities (i.e. physical and sexual abuse by a parent) were independently associated with exacerbated increases in negative affect on days with more symptoms. Findings add to literature on the role of early adversity for the maintenance of everyday well-being and highlight the potential importance of such experiences for coping and adaption in the face of daily health challenges across adulthood and old age.

Parent Anxiety, Depression, Protective Responses, and Parenting Stress in the Context of Parent and Child Chronic Pain: A Daily Diary Study of Parent Variability

Parents with (vs without) chronic pain report poorer psychosocial functioning (eg, worse mental health, parenting difficulties), which has been linked to poorer child outcomes (eg, child pain). However, emerging research suggests that individuals vary in their functioning from day-to-day, particularly those with chronic pain. This study used daily diaries to compare parents with (versus without) chronic pain on variability in their anxiety, mood, protective responses, and parenting stress. We also examined parent chronic pain status as a moderator of the associations between parent variability and youth daily pain and interference. Participants were 76 youth with chronic pain (Mage = 14.26; 71.1% female) and one of their parents (89.5% mothers; n = 38 or 50.0% endorsing chronic pain). Parents and youth completed self-report questionnaires and 7 days of diaries. Parent variability was calculated to reflect the frequency and size of day-to-day changes. Multilevel models revealed that parents with (vs without) chronic pain were significantly more variable in their parenting stress, but not in their anxiety, mood, or protective responses. Contrary to hypotheses, parent variability was not significantly related to youth daily pain intensity or interference and parent chronic pain did not moderate any associations. Instead, mean levels of parent anxiety, protective responses, and parenting stress across the week significantly predicted youth daily pain interference. Findings suggest that while variability was observed among parents (with and without chronic pain) of youth with chronic pain, it did not significantly predict youth's daily pain-related functioning. Further research is needed to confirm these initial findings. PERSPECTIVE: Parents with chronic pain have expressed concerns that the variable nature of their pain negatively impacts their children. Our results found that parents (with and without chronic pain) were variable in their anxiety, mood, protective responses, and parenting stress, but this variability did not significantly predict youth's chronic pain-related functioning.