An estimated 15% to 30% of otherwise healthy children and adolescents suffer from recurrent or chronic pain such as headache, abdominal pain, and musculoskeletal pain. Chronic pain has a significant impact on children's mood, daily functioning, and overall quality of life. Effective behavioral interventions have been developed to increase positive coping behaviors. However, most children do not have access to these interventions due to a variety of barriers such as distance from pediatric pain treatment centers. We have developed an online behavioral intervention called Web-based Management of Adolescent Pain (Web-MAP), and our preliminary findings indicated that children in families that received this intervention experienced significant improvements in their pain level and daily functioning compared to children who did not receive the intervention (Palermo et al., 2009). The purpose of this study is to extend these findings by: 1) recruiting families from other medical centers, 2) determining whether the benefits of online behavioral intervention are maintained 6- and 12-months after the intervention has been completed, 3) evaluating additional outcomes such as parent responses to pain and child sleep quality, anxiety, depression, and health service use, 4) comparing results from online behavioral intervention to online patient education.
