Strange increase in chronic pain in the child and adolescent population

Chronic pain among children and adolescents continues to grow. A recent prevalence study has raised the percentage of young people suffering from some type of persistent pain to 46%, when fifteen years ago an investigation of the same characteristics placed it at 37%.

The new study is the work of the ALGOS research group of the Child Pain Chair of the Department of Psychology at the Rovira i Virgili University (URV) in Tarragona, in collaboration with the Grünenthal Foundation in Madrid, Spain.

This research, led by Professor Jordi Miró, has also addressed high-impact chronic pain, which, in the same fifteen-year period cited, has gone from affecting 1% of children and adolescents to affecting 5%.

The study has been carried out in different primary and secondary schools in Camp de Tarragona, with a significant sample of male and female students, and considers chronic pain to be that which has manifested itself weekly and, at least, in the last three months. The most common locations are the head, back, and legs. Among the girls is where this problem has the most incidence, which worsens with the passing of the years.

“These are data that can be perfectly extrapolated to other levels, since it is a trend that we are detecting in the international arena, where this significant increase also occurs. It is not an isolated event in our country, since we also see it reflected in studies proposed by the WHO, in which we have observed that the prevalence is increasing”, points out Jordi Miró.

Jordi Miro. (Photo: URV)

high impact chronic pain

Miró is concerned about the increase in cases of high-impact chronic pain, in which this pain seriously affects the functioning of the individual at different levels, physical, psychological, social and school, such as mobility problems, fatigue, anxiety, sleep, depression… All of this leads, for example, to missing school days, with a clear impact on school performance.

As Jordi Miró admits, there is no definitive answer to explain the causes of this increase. “However, we have partial answers, such as the results of some studies that talk about stress, sedentary lifestyle, sleep quality, time spent in front of screens… This partial vision already allows us to draw prevention programs” Miró explains. The study provides keys to develop more effective treatments and prevent pain from increasing, since “when it becomes chronic it is very difficult to make it disappear.”

From the Child Pain Chair they propose “decided action” on different fronts and in a combined way: expand the treatment programs available, improve the training of professionals who have to care for the population with pain problems and encourage and promote research in this scope. “Without research, which is what makes it possible to generate new knowledge, it is very difficult to progress,” says Miró.

In this sense, Camp de Tarragona has the program for the study and treatment of chronic childhood pain at Hospital Sant Joan de Reus, managed by Jordi Miró’s team, a free service, unique in the state and one of the few in the European sphere, which the Chair claims for its great utility in dealing with a problem that is on the rise. (Source: URV)