Anxiety and Depression Linked to Chronic Pain in Kids

A new study has found that children with chronic pain are 3 times more likely to also experience anxiety or depression.

This comes as a surprise because these psychiatric disorders have never appeared in past research on pain.

However, studies on pain have usually featured people with fear of pain or pain anxiety. Just not clinical anxiety or depression.

"Clinically," said Lead author Dr. Joanne Dudeney, "I was seeing a lot of young people with chronic pain who were also being diagnosed with anxiety and depression, but those comorbid psychological conditions weren't showing up in the body of research on pain."

That was what led her to conduct a study to discover the comorbid relationship between pain and clinical anxiety and depression.

The research found that one-third of children under 18 living with chronic pain also have anxiety disorder, while one-eight have major depression.

So, it's more than just a fear of pain, or sadness resulting from pain. It is serious mental illness that we should be worried about when we find young children battling chronic pain.

From the research, the pain could be a primary condition, it could be a symptom of another primary condition, or it could have no known cause. As long as it is chronic pain, anxiety and depression are prevalent in such kids.

Note: Chronic pain is pain that lasts beyond 3 months.

So, what can we do?

As a parent, if your child is experiencing chronic pain, consider having their mental health assessed.

It's also important for pain practitioners to be aware of the comorbidity of chronic pain and mental illness in kids under 18, so they can perform mental health screening for every young patient in their care.

Need help?

If you're a parent and the above is true for your kid, you can provide them with comprehensive mental health care by contacting us at Hope Mental Health.

No child deserves to battle severe pain for years while experiencing the debilitating impact of anxiety or depression.

Contact us now let's give your child the help they need.

Author

Satu H. Woodland, PMHCNS-BC, APRN Satu Woodland is owner and clinician of Hope Mental Health, an integrative mental health practice located at Bown Crossing in Boise, Idaho. She sees children, adolescents, and adults.  Ms. Woodland with her background in nursing, prefers a holistic and integrative approach to mental health care that addresses the mind and body together. While Ms. Woodland provides medication management services in all her patients, she believes in long-lasting solutions that include a number of psychotherapies, namely cognitive behavioral therapy, exposure and response prevention therapy, attention to lifestyle, evidenced based alternative psychiatric care and spirituality. If you’d like to gain control over your mental health issues, call Hope Mental Health at 208-918-0958, or use the online scheduling tool to set up an initial consultation.