Presentation Description: Pain and distress from medical procedures is very common, especially for children with cancer and their families. Drawing from the research literature and systematic reviews, this presentation provided an overview of the efficacy of different interventions for procedure pain management in children, with a focus on the role of psychological interventions.  The presentation also addressed barriers to effective procedure pain management in children.  Moreover, the presentation summarized recent work using social media as a method to mobilize research evidence about children’s pain to parents, including the successful “It Doesn’t Have to Hurt” YouTube video for parents about procedure pain. The more recent “It Doesn’t Have to Hurt” social media campaign, a partnership with Erica Ehm’s YummyMummyClub.ca, using blogs, Twitter parties, Facebook polls, videos, and social media images was also be described. Recently funded by a Knowledge-to-Action grant from the Canadian Cancer Society, the speaker shared plans to develop a social media initiative specifically on cancer pain in children for caregivers, in partnership with the Cancer Knowledge Network.

Speaker:

Christine T. Chambers, PhD, RPsych
Clinical Psychologist, Centre for Pediatric Pain Research, IWK Health Centre, Halifax NS