Maternal influence and Childs' pain (Essay Sample)

Maternal influence and Childs’ pain Name: Institution affiliation Introduction The pediatric journal in psychology is a journal that is published by the Oxford University press and it focuses on the development of children and to be specific on psychological development of the children. The hypothesis of this article is whether maternal behavior has any influence on children’s pain experience. The article has been published by  HYPERLINK "http://jpepsy.oxfordjournals.org/search?author1=Christine+T.+Chambers&sortspec=date&submit=Submit" Christine T. Chambers,  HYPERLINK "http://jpepsy.oxfordjournals.org/search?author1=Kenneth+D.+Craig&sortspec=date&submit=Submit" Kenneth D. Craig, and  HYPERLINK "http://jpepsy.oxfordjournals.org/search?author1=Susan+M.+Bennett&sortspec=date&submit=Submit" Susan M. Bennett. The experiment carried out is to provide an experimental investigation of the impacts that the maternal behavior has on children’s pain experience. Method In this experiment, observation was used to gather the information required. There were 120 participants who were healthy. Gender equality was considered where there were 60 boys and 60 girls together with their mothers. The children ranged from 8-12 years old while the mothers averaged 42 years of age. The families were of middle to upper class in terms of the financial capabilities. In the experiment, mothers were randomly assigned and also trained on how to interact with the children in three different ways while the children on the other hand, were exposed to a lab-induced cold pressor pain. The children were also exposed to a pain-promoting interaction, a pain reducing interaction and then a non training control group. The training of the parents was based on the behavior that was imagined to have an impact. The children’s pain experience during the stage of cold pressor was assessed by use of the self reports of tolerance, heart rate responsiveness, facial activity and intensity and affect. Below is an analysis of what was measured; Pain intensity- they used the face pain scale which provides seven faces representing the increasing gradation of pain sensitivity. The children were asked to choose a face which indicated their level of worst pain intensity. The scale measured from 0-6 and it showed validity, preliminary and reliability scale ratios. Pain affect- they used the facial affective scale which provided nine faces that ranged from happiness to sadness. The children were asked to select a face that represented how unpleasant when they immersed their hand in a basin of water. The scale was scored by use of the affective magnitude ratings which were assigned to each face. They ranged from 0.04-0.97. Pain tolerance- this is whereby the length in time in which a child kept his hands immersed in the water was recorded. In this part also the child was asked to it voluntarily. Facial expression- the facial coding system of the child was recorded. In this, 13 represented discrete facial expression whereby 5 of these indicated pain. They were coded up to 10secomds for each of the children. After this, a summary of the 5 facial actions was calculated. Heart rate- this is the beats per minute of the heart. It was measured by use of the polar brand heart rate chest. The measurement was taken in intervals of 5 seconds. The means heart rate score was calculated which represented the entire time the child had his or her hand immersed in water. This investigation viewed as an experiment as there was the involvement of the participants and also the collection of data by use of machines. It is also termed as an experiment on accordance to the objective where they wanted to conduct an experimental investigation of the impacts that maternal behavior has on the children’s pain experience. This experiment can be termed as a survey research since the experiment is conducted to investigate the effects and only a sample was selected from a population so as to represent the whole population. This method of data collection is the best for this experiment since data was needed to represent the all society and by this, they needed participants who would represent the all society. It is also the best since what is being assessed here is the feeling of pain in the children and sample survey is the best method for analyzing that kind of data. Result The results of this experiment was that the girls while mother were able to interact with them during the pain promoting manner, they reported to have more pain than those daughters of the mothers who are in the control group. On the other hand, the girls who were in the control group showed to have more pain than the girls whose mothers interacted with them during the pain-reducing manner. This effect was not observed in the boys. The boys showed that the maternal interaction had no effect on their pain, tolerance, heart rate or pain affect. Discussion The research means that the maternal behavior does have a direct impact on their daughters’ individual reports on pain. It is very interesting to take in consideration whey maternal interaction had effect on only girls and not the boys. Some previous studies conducted show that the girl child may not be sensitive to their mother’s behavior when it comes to pain symptoms. Is it possible that girls in this study were more conscious of their mothers’ behavior during the process of cold pressor than the boys. The other possible explanation for this result would be that the pain response of the 8-12 years old boys who participated in this study had were well socialized making them to be unsusceptible to the maternal influence of their mothers’ than the girl child. These explanations need further study to verify these results. In contrast to the hypothesis of this experiment, there was no any particular impact of maternal interaction type on the Childs’ tolerance, facial activity or pain effect. One possible explanation for this result would be that an absence of these measures would be findings that psychological and nonverbal behavior indicators are less emendable to any external influence. Contrast to previous studies conducted, boys in those studies show high score when it comes to the facial activity more that the girls. This experiment is limited due to some factors. For instance, there was lack of resemblance among the various measures that are indicated in this study. This should not be expected in this study due to the fact that given that the previous accounts of discordance which is among the multiple measures on the pediatric pain. There is also no direct attempt of controlling or measuring the mothers’ nonverbal behaviors in this experiment. This means that further study should be carried out so as it can attempt to explore the influence that the verbal and the non-verbal behavior of the mothe...