Pain and learning in primary school: a population-based study

The objective of this study was to quantify the association of pain and academic achievement while taking into account the presence of co-occurring emotional symptoms. A population-based stratified random sample of 1239 students aged 8 to 9 years from primary schools in Melbourne, Australia, was recruited for the Childhood to Adolescence Transition Study. Children indicated sites of pain that had lasted for a day or longer in the past month using a pain manikin. Depressive- and anxiety-related symptoms were assessed using child-reported items. National assessment results for reading and numeracy were used to measure academic achievement. Sixty-five percent of children reported pain in at least 1 body site and 16% reported chronic pain. Increasing number of pain sites was associated with poorer reading scores in a dose–response fashion (β = −3.1; 95% confidence interval −4.9 to −1.3; P
Source: Pain - Category: Anesthesiology Tags: Research Paper Source Type: research