The Influence of Parent Preprocedural Anxiety on Child Procedural Pain: Mediation by Child Procedural Anxiety

Objective Data suggest parents' preprocedural anxiety is related to children's acute procedural anxiety and pain. This study examined the temporal relations among these constructs to determine whether children's anxiety mediates the relation between parents' anticipatory anxiety and children's procedural pain. Methods A total of 90 preschoolers receiving immunizations, their parents, and the nurses rated children's procedural anxiety and pain. Parents provided ratings of their own preprocedural anxiety. Results Bootstrapping analyses revealed that children's procedural anxiety mediated the relation between parents' preprocedural anxiety and children's procedural pain according to parents' report and nurses' report but not children's self-report of anxiety and pain. Conclusions Analyses suggest that children's procedural anxiety mediates the relation between parents' anticipatory anxiety and children's procedural pain. Thus, targeting parents' preprocedural anxiety might be beneficial to the parents as well as the children undergoing a distressing medical procedure.