Highest endowed science prize for pain research goes to psychologists at Datteln Children's Hospital

Witten/Datteln. Dr Julia Wager heads the research department at the German Paediatric Pain Centre at the Vestische Kinder- und Jugendklinik Datteln - Witten/Herdecke University. At the German Pain Congress in Mannheim, she and her doctoral student Meltem Dogan have now received the award for pain research from the German Pain Society. The prize is endowed with 7,000 euros. The prize honours their work on improving the inpatient treatment of children with severe chronic pain disorders.

Chronic pain is a growing problem for children and adolescents: According to a recent study of schools in North Rhine-Westphalia, 8% of children in secondary schools suffer from severe chronic pain. In these children, the headaches, abdominal pain or joint pain are so severe that they often miss school, have trouble sleeping, can no longer pursue their leisure activities and develop emotional disorders such as anxiety or depression. Outpatient treatment alone is no longer sufficient for these children and adolescents - they must be treated as inpatients at centres such as the German Paediatric Pain Centre in Datteln.

Improving children's chances of recovery

The interprofessional hospital treatment developed here is already very successful. The work of Dr Julia Wager and her team has further improved the children's chances of recovery: "We have added a six-month coaching programme to the intensive three-week pain therapy programme. Here, the children and their families are supported in such a way that they can actually implement what they have learned in hospital in their everyday lives," explains Dr Wager. "The enormous improvement in the treatment results surprised us ourselves. We did not expect such a strong effect."

The six-month psychosocial aftercare programme following inpatient pain therapy was randomly assigned to patients in the three paediatric pain centres in Stuttgart, Augsburg and Datteln. The other patients received the standard care programme. Twelve months after the end of therapy, 60% of the children in the aftercare group were pain-free, compared to only 30% in the standard treatment group. In addition, the pain still present in the aftercare group was less severe and the quality of life was significantly higher than after standard treatment. The patients also felt much better emotionally - they suffered fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression.

The study was subsidised by the Innovation Fund with 1.3 million euros. The positive results were published internationally in the highest-ranking scientific journals. The project is currently being evaluated by the Federal Joint Committee before it could become standard care for children with severe chronic pain in Germany. "We hope that in future all children and adolescents with severe pain will receive this psychosocial aftercare following intensive inpatient pain therapy so that they have the best possible chance of recovering and achieving their full potential in life," says Dr Wager. "And of course we are delighted to receive the award, which motivates us to do even more for children suffering from pain."