Research

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Find out if you or your child can take part in a research study.

SPRINT

Signature for Pain Recovery in Teens

About: SPRINT is a multisite, international effort to uncover a biological signature predicting pain recovery and persistence in teens with musculoskeletal pain. In collaboration with the University of Toronto, Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, we will use a novel machine learning technique to generate and test a model, opening doors for new screening and treatment approaches. SPRINT participation consists of a small blood draw, an hour-long MRI, sensory testing, and parent and child questionnaires in person, and biweekly surveys for three months at home.

Current Status: Active Enrollment
Funding: NIH

To learn more about this study, please visit sprint.stanford.edu or email sprintstudy@stanford.edu 

JPC

Journey in Pain Care

About: Participants in SPRINT are invited to participate in our Journey in Pain Care study where we aim to deepen our understanding of the lived experiences of youth and their caregivers as they navigate pain care. Through qualitative, semi-structured, interviews we ask youth and their caregivers to reflect on their experiences seeking, receiving, and engaging in pain care. Patients and caregivers are asked to engage in 60-minute interviews that include drawing a visual timeline of their pain care journey, and discussing their experiences including pain diagnoses, pain treatments, care teams, and barriers/facilitators to pain care engagement.

Current Status: Active Enrollment
Funding: NIH

To learn more about this study, please email PedsPainLab@stanford.edu

PR-VR

Pain Rehabilitation Virtual Reality

About: In collaboration with Stanford Children’s Health, Kaiser Permanente, and California Rehabilitation & Sports Therapy, this randomized controlled trial will examine a novel approach to pain management through the use of virtual reality (VR) technologies. We expect to address factors relevant to chronic pain, including increasing range of motion, reducing pain-related fear of movement, and improving the mind-body connection. VR tools for pain have shown promise in numerous research studies and our mission is to continue to improve care for children and adolescents with chronic pain.

Current Status: Active Enrollment
Funding: NIH

To learn more about this study, please email PedsPainLab@stanford.edu

IGL

iGET Living

About: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the acceptability, feasibility, and preliminary efficacy of iGET Living, a digital version of an already developed intervention (GET Living) consisting of graded exposure therapy
(GET) with a focus on values-based actions derived from acceptance and commitment therapy principles for adolescents with chronic pain and their parent.

Current Status: Active Enrollment
Funding: NIH

To learn more about this study, please email PedsPainLab@stanford.edu

Train Pain

About: Sensory rehabilitation training is emerging as an efficacious treatment for both adults and youth with chronic pain. The TrainPain team recently developed a technology platform to enable patients with chronic pain to perform sensory rehabilitation exercises at home in a gamified manner on a patient’s personal smartphone.

Current Status: Active Enrollment
Funding:  MayDay Foundation

To learn more about this study, please email PedsPainLab@stanford.edu

Empowered Relief for Youth

About: Empowered Relief for Youth: Empowered relief has shown to be an effective single-session pain education class for adults with chronic pain. The purpose of this study is to test the feasibility and acceptability within youth with chronic pain.

Current Status: Active Enrollment
Funding:  N/A

To learn more about this study, please email PedsPainLab@stanford.edu

SIIP

About: This study aims to address the major inadequacies in the assessment of sexual orientation and gender identity seen in research currently, as well as major gaps in our understanding of the experience of chronic pain in LGBTQ+ youth. This represents a critical first step in providing equitable and inclusive chronic pain care for LGBTQ+ youth

Current Status: Active Enrollment
Funding:  N/A

To learn more about this study, please email PedsPainLab@stanford.edu

SCOPE

Scanning Circles of Pain/Parent Engagement

About:

Parents play an integral role in their child’s development. The goal of this study is to help us understand more about how a parent’s brain and body responds to their child’s pain, and how this affects the child’s pain experience. The study will involve a parent and their child filling out surveys. Children will undergo sensory testing while we record facial expressions. We will present photos of their child to the parents while we monitor parent’s sweat response, heart rate, and facial expressions. Parents may choose the option to perform the photo task within an MRI scanner. The child will watch a movie while parents complete the task. We hope the information from this study will help us better treat pediatric patients with chronic pain.

Funding: Stanford Center for Cognitive and Neurobiological Imaging (CNI) and Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine

Learning & Memory

Learning and Memory in Pediatric Chronic Pain

About: Given the influential role of learning and memory on pain outcomes in youth with chronic pain, the goal of the current study is to examine the process of aversive learning in adolescents with pain in comparison to healthy individuals. This study utilizes brain imaging (fMRI), psychophysical (skin conductance), and saliva cortisol measures to assess functional circuit and physiological changes associated with altered learning and memory patterns.

Funding: NIH

SCI

Symptom-Fear Interactions in Young Female Cancer Survivors

About: This project uses longitudinal surveys to understand how physical symptoms (e.g., pain, fatigue) and fear of cancer recurrence interact and contribute to health behaviors and quality of life in young female cancer survivors over time. Young adult female survivors of breast and gynecological cancers complete three remote surveys across 6 months.

Funding: Stanford Cancer Institute Innovation Award

BRAVE

Building Resilience and Values through E-health

About: This project uses smart-phone based Ecological Momentary Assessments (EMA) to examine childhood cancer survivors’ experiences of surveillance and follow-up visits at the hospital. Adolescent and young adult survivors of childhood cancer complete multiple daily assessments of physical symptoms (e.g., pain, fatigue), bodily threat monitoring, stress, and emotions (including fear of cancer recurrence) before and after their follow-up visits. This study will help us to better understand the experience of “scanxiety”, and how symptoms and affect interact at these acutely stressful times during the survivorship period.

Funding: Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Auxiliaries Endowment Fund

GET Living

Graded Exposure Treatment in Pediatric Chronic Pain

About: GET Living is an innovative, individualized outpatient treatment program for children and adolescents with chronic pain focused on progressively engaging in activities of daily living that are difficult to do. During GET Living, parents and patients work jointly with a physical therapist and cognitive behavioral therapist to return to valued activities such as school, sports and spending time with friends and build the skills to “get living”.

Funding: NIH

COPI

Concept of Pain Inventory – Instrument Validation Study

About: In collaboration with PhD Candidate Joshua Pate at Macquarie University, this study focuses on the development and psychometric testing of an assessment tool for a child’s concept of pain. A child’s ‘concept of pain’ refers to how they understand what pain actually is, what function it serves, and what biological processes are thought to underpin it. There are questionnaires that assess aspects of the concept of pain, such as beliefs, in adult populations. However, no such tool currently exists to assess a child’s concept of pain. We hope this tool can be used in the future to evaluate the effectiveness of targeted pain education in pediatric pain patients, and to determine the predictive validity of this construct for clinical variables such as pain, disability, and treatment outcomes.

BAACS

Bodily Awareness After Cancer Scale – Pediatric Oncology and Pain

About: Forty years ago, three quarters of children and adolescents diagnosed with cancer died – today, three quarters survive but survival, however, is often accompanied by a debilitating fear that the cancer will return, a fear that can be intensified by bodily sensations such as pain, breathlessness, and fatigue. Although these bodily sensations are part of living a normal, active lifestyle, knowing how to appraise and cope with them is a tremendous challenge during cancer survivorship. Currently, there is no guidance for clinicians on how to accurately measure young survivors’ fear and worry about bodily sensations or how to target these fears during intervention. This research project will address this empirical and clinical gap using phenomenologically-guided qualitative interviews and the design a new self-report measure: The Body Awareness After Cancer Scale (BAACS).

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