Parents’ Pain Catastrophizing is Related to Pain Catastrophizing of Their Adult Children

Parents’ pain behavior is associated with the way their children experience and express pain.

We hypothesized that there is a positive association between levels of pain catastrophizing in parents and their adult children.

Study included 285 participants, 100 patients, 85 spouses, and 100 adult children from 100 families. Pain catastrophizing
was assessed with the Croatian version of Pain Catastrophizing Scale. Patients’ pain intensity was measured with the visual
analogue scale.

Significant positive correlation was found between pain catastrophizing of adult children and both of their parents. Regression
analysis was conducted to test for the role of parents’ pain catastrophizing scores in explaining pain catastrophizing in
their adult children. The results showed that parents’ pain catastrophizing scores explain results of their adult children,
accounting for 20% of the variance.

The results from the present study indicate that there is a positive association between levels of pain catastrophizing in
parents and their adult children. A family may have a specific cognitive style for coping with pain, which is associated to
a child’s responses to pain experiences.