Pain and Traumatic Stress in Infants, Children and Adolescents: Searching for a Better Comprehension of This Complex Relationship

Dear Colleagues,

Pediatric health care providers and educators would benefit from better comprehending and recognizing how far into the future the effects of childhood trauma, pain, and adversity may extend. A better understanding will serve as further motivation to help infants, children, and adolescents in these situations to access the required assistence as fast as possible and to safeguard them against some of the (neuro)biological changes that put them at risk (mental) health problems later in life. Similarly, experts in the field of  adult (mental) health working with individuals who suffered childhood trauma would benefit from focusing their research efforts on exploring the link between that and chronic pain and illness, so that they can better support their patients.

This special issue has the purpose to explore the relationship between pain and trauma in infants, children and adolescents from various perspectives including neurobiological processes, screening for signs of early trauma, and possible mitigating and preventive treatment modalities.  When examining the pediatric population, developmental factors must be seriously considered because the impact of early stress on the developing brain in infants, children and adolescents may be distinct from processes observed later in life. Experiencing pain can be stressful even traumatizing especially for young children and adolescents. Though often thought of as separate constructs, from empirical findings emerged a more intricate connection underlying the occurrence of both pain and trauma symptoms. Given the complex multifaceted nature of this theme, contributors are stimulated to approach pediatric pain and trauma from different perspectives.

Papers might focus on:

• The relationship between Traumatic Stress and Pain in infants, children and adolescents
• Co-Occurrence of Pain and Trauma
• The relationship between ACEs, trauma symptoms and later development of chronic pain
• Understanding the neurobiological processes underlying the connection between early pain and trauma
• Neurobiological changes in brain connectivity, HPA axis responsiveness, or epigenetic processes during development in relation to future management of pain and trauma
• Why addressing pain and trauma should go together
• Development and Refinement of screening tools for traumatic stress following pediatric injury and trauma
• Trauma informed care as an approach to guard against some of the biological changes that could make children suffer later on in life

Dr. Johanna Blom
Dr. Cristina Benatti
Dr. Veronica Rivi
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Children is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• pain
• trauma
• trauma induced stress
• screening
• pain and trauma informed care