Parental narrative style moderates the relation between pain-related attention and memory biases in youth with chronic pain

Abstract

Abstract Negatively biased pain memories robustly predict maladaptive pain outcomes in children. Both attention bias to pain and parental narrative style have been linked with the development of these negative biases, with previous studies indicating that how parents talk to their child about the pain might buffer the influence of children's attention bias to pain on the development of such negatively biased pain memories. This study investigated the moderating role of parental narrative style in the relation between pain-related attention and memory biases in a pediatric chronic pain sample who underwent a cold pressor task. Participants were 85 youth-parent dyads who reminisced about youth's painful event. Eye-tracking technology was used to assess youth's attention bias to pain information, whereas youth's pain-related memories were elicited 1 month later through telephone interview. Results indicated that a parental narrative style using less repetitive yes–no questions, more emotion words, and less fear words buffered the influence of high levels of youth's attention bias to pain in the development of negatively biased pain memories. Opposite effects were observed for youth with low levels of attention bias to pain. Current findings corroborate earlier results on parental reminiscing in the context of pain (memories) but stress the importance of matching narrative style with child characteristics, such as child attention bias to pain, in the development of negatively biased pain memories. Future avenues for parent–child reminiscing and clinical implications for pediatric chronic pain are discussed.