An Exploration of Dispositional Mindfulness and the Mechanisms of Pain Processing in Children
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Date
2019-01-01
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Department
Psychology
Program
Psychology
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Distribution Rights granted to UMBC by the author.
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Access limited to the UMBC community. Item may possibly be obtained via Interlibrary Loan thorugh a local library, pending author/copyright holder's permission.
This item is likely protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Unless on a Creative Commons license, for uses protected by Copyright Law, contact the copyright holder or the author.
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Abstract
Cognitive load has been shown to affect subjective pain experiences for adults, however the current study is the first to examine the effect of cognitive load on distraction effectiveness for children. Additionally, dispositional mindfulness was examined as a part of this study as it is increasingly examined in adult and child samples with regard to the affective processing of pain. To examine these hypotheses fifty-seven children (9-13 years old) experienced three randomly presented heat levels (not painful, slightly painful, moderately painful) during two distraction conditions involving different levels of cognitive load (a high load ‘working memory' task and a low load ‘motor' control task) in counter-balanced order. Children completed measures of dispositional mindfulness. As predicted, children's pain intensity and pain unpleasantness ratings were lower in the high load condition compared to the low load condition. These differences were amplified in the moderately painful heat trials. In contrast to predictions, dispositional mindfulness was not a significant predictor of the effectiveness of distraction. Dispositional mindfulness was significantly related to measures of children's attentional and emotional control abilities, however a serial mediation model did not produce significant indirect or overall effects to suggest a strong influence of mindfulness on the effectiveness of distraction. Results demonstrate that distraction that places high demand on executive resources is more effective for acute pain management for children. Further research is needed to examine the potential effects of dispositional mindfulness on the effectiveness of distraction in children.