Chronic Pain in School Children

Studies have shown that chronic pain can have detrimental impacts for children at primary school (Kosola et al., 2017; Murray et al., 2020). This includes educational outcomes such as reading and numeracy (Kosola et al., 2017) and final overall school grades (Grimby-Ekman et al., 2018); satisfaction with school experience (Vervoort et al., 2014); and social outcomes, such as sense of school belonging (Ross et al., 2010) and bullying (Logan et al., 2008). The mechanisms underlying why chronic pain impacts school outcomes are varied and include reduced concentration due to pain (Kosola et al., 2017), repeated school absences (Norton & Southon, 2020), and a detrimental effect on emotional wellbeing (Varni et al., 2022) which have all been suggested to impact educational outcomes for children with chronic pain. These effects may lead to poorer long term quality of life for sufferers and their families (Murray et al., 2020) but it is unclear whether they lead to poorer performance on standardised tests.

Despite the substantial effect chronic pain can have on educational outcomes, there is a dearth of research about the underlying reasons nor how to negate the impacts of chronic pain on educational outcomes (Birnie et al., 2020). Additionally, there is a need for current research to be carried out in the UK as much of the research in this area is more than 20 years old (Matthews, 2002) and focuses on the impact of chronic pain generally rather than on education specifically. Therefore, there is a need for research in the UK that explores the relationship between chronic pain, educational outcomes, and the mental health of children which may be a contributing factor.