Parental cardiac response in the context of pediatric acute pain: current knowledge and future directions

Pain is a complex experience that involves sensory and emotional components. Pain experience and expression are influenced by emotions, with negative emotional states often associated with poor pain outcomes, such as higher levels of reported pain intensity and lower levels of pain tolerance [1]. Pain from needle procedures, such as from immunizations and venipunctures, is common throughout childhood. Children typically report fear of, anxiety about and display distress during these required painful medical procedures [2,3]. [Note: Fear can be defined as a proximal response to perceived threat, anxiety is a future-oriented apprehension; distress is a broad term for unpleasant affect which is...