Objective: To apply a biopsychosocial framework to understand factors influencing pain in survivors of pediatric cancer to inform pain prevention efforts and highlight the need for interdisciplinary care.
Method: This topical review draws from both pediatric cancer survivorship research and chronic noncancer pain research to illustrate how components of a preventative model can be applied to pain in survivorship.
Results: Pain is a common experience among long-term survivors of pediatric cancer. The pain experience in survivorship can be conceptualized in terms of biological disease and treatment factors, cognitive and affective factors, and social and contextual factors. We review literature pertinent to each of these biopsychosocial factors and tailor an existing public health prevention framework for pain in survivors of pediatric cancer.
Conclusions: Classifying survivors of pediatric cancer into pain risk categories based on their daily experiences of pain, pain-related functional impairment, and distress could help guide the implementation of pain-related prevention and intervention strategies in this population. Future research is needed to establish the efficacy of screening measures to identify patients in need of psychosocial pain and pain-related fear management services, and interdisciplinary pediatric chronic pain management programs in survivors of pediatric cancer.