Pharmacy Daily | Rethink pain in youth to get better help

DEBUNKING pain myths could help teens recover faster from chronic pain.

Whether it's headaches, abdominal pain, or unrelenting joint soreness, up to a third of young people in Australia experience chronic pain.

Now, a world-first study from the University of South Australia is providing insights about how young people understand chronic pain, potentially helping thousands of sufferers to better manage their symptoms and long-term wellbeing.

Lead researcher, pain expert and Survivor contestant Dr Hayley Leake, says understanding what young people think about pain can help debunk pain myths and identify new treatment pathways.

"What people think about where their pain is coming from, matters, but unhelpful beliefs about pain can stop people from accessing the best care," Leake explained.

"Optimal care for chronic pain involves movement and psychological therapy.

"Yet these treatments can seem counter-intuitive if you think your pain means tissue damage.

"If we can identify what young people think about pain, we can figure out which beliefs are helpful, and which are not and use this knowledge to make better pain education and why youth should engage with better practice pain treatments."

The study was conducted as part of a larger study (of children aged 11-17 years), with long-term interview follow-ups (six years later) of these now young adults with a history of chronic pain in childhood.

Of the original cohort, 229 completed the six-year follow-up study, with 189 (82.5%) still reporting current chronic pain.

Researchers found that young people tended to make sense of chronic pain by explaining it as:

something that is wrong with their body;

associated with an injury that has not healed;

connected to nerves 'firing' when they should not; and

linked to an overactive stress system.

Leake says while some of the themes provide helpful ways of thinking about pain, others capture misconceptions about how pain works which can then create barriers to them getting treatment.

"It is important to challenge beliefs about pain that don't align with modern pain science," Leake said.

"In this study we can see that some young adults believe that pain means their body has an unresolved tissue injury.

"This is not necessarily the case, as pain can persist when nerves become hypersensitive, despite no injury to body tissue.

"One way we explain this to young people is by comparing chronic pain to computer issues - the problem is with the software, not the hardware," Leake said.