The candidate is a postdoctoral fellow in pediatric psychology who is advancing to a junior faculty position. This award is expected to help transition the focus of the candidate's research and to provide additional training in chronic and recurrent pain in children, in particular, the associated functional morbidity. The candidate's career goals are to develop an independent research career related to identification and prevention of pain-related functional consequences and children. Specific objectives are to: 1) broaden understanding of the functional impact of chronic and recurrent pain in children through consideration of multiple child and family specific domains, and 2) to use psychosocial family assessment data to develop interventions to prevent or limit functional consequences of pain in children. The candidate proposes a five-year training program with faculty mentors from a strong pediatric research department. her sponsor is a very experienced pediatric psychology researcher whose work has focused on identifying factors that enhanced or disrupt the psychosocial adaptation of children with chronic illness. Co-sponsors and mentors represent subspecialty divisions that are directly relevant to the research and career development plan. The career development plan describes activities focused on enhanced knowledge of research-related approaches to the management of chronic and recurrent pain and pain-related disability in children through coursework, independent study, and clinic observations. Other activities in the plan include research training in statistical methods supervised experienced in preparation of grant proposals for individual research support, and training in the responsible conduct of research. The candidate's proposed research involves three projects. Study 1 is a baseline assessment of pain- related functional consequences and potential family moderators of impairment in children with sickle cell disease, juvenile chronic arthritis, and migraine headaches. Study 2 is a follow-up of this sample at 12 months to provide as yet unavailable information on the functional impact of chronic and recurrent pain over time. Study 3 is a pilot study to develop and evaluate family-centered interventions to reduce functional consequences of recurrent and chronic pain in children.
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