Expressed Beliefs About the Cause of Pain in a Paediatric Population

The aims of this study are to explore what beliefs children and adolescents manifest about the cause of the pain they describe; to compare whether if there are differences between beliefs by age and by persistence of pain; and to relate explanations of the cause of pain with current scientific evidence to determine if these beliefs are erroneous.

Design: Mixed (explanatory sequential). The primary endpoint of the study were explanations of the cause of pain recorded by means of an open-ended question. Setting: The participants were school-age children attending a charted school in the province of Barcelona. Participants: Of the 345 potential school participants, 306 agreed to participate. 36 pupils were excluded when applying the eligibility criteria, so the resulting sample was of 270.