ACCURACY OF CHILDRENS PAIN MEMORIES

Despite its importance in clinical practice, little research has exami ned memory for pain in children. This prospective study tried to justi fy the use of children's pain recall in clinical practice. The purpose of this study was to (a) investigate the accuracy of children's recal l of their worst and average pain intensity when controlling for the e ffects of repeated pain measurement and (b) examine the influence of c hildren's anxiety, age, general memory ability and pain coping strateg ies on this accuracy. The accuracy of children's recalled pain intensi ties was studied in 55 inpatients aged 5-16 years by comparing the lev el of recorded pain intensity with the level of recalled pain intensit y 1 day and 1 week after recording using Bieri's Faces Pain Scale. The accuracy of children's recalled pain intensities was high and showed little decrement over 1 week. Older children had more accurate recall of their worst pain intensity. Anxiety, general memory ability and pai n coping strategies were not related to accuracy of recalled pain inte nsities. (C) 1997 international Association for the Study of Pain. Pub lished by Elsevier Science B.V.