Methods
Parenting Pain‘s methodology is designed to enable symmetrical cross-analysis of the perspectives of pain-affected children, their parents and professional care-givers.
The study incorporates
1) co-creating and using appropriate child-centered methods for researching young pain patient’s experiences
2) in-depth interviews with parents
3) observation of families’ pain clinic visits and rehabilitation weeks in public healthcare settings in Finland
4) interviews with clinicians and observation of professional trainings and scientific conferences on pediatric pain
5) extended case studies of patient families’ everyday lives and interactions with care providers.
Research Questions
- How does prolonged pain affect the everyday lives of families living in Finland, and how do families maintain hope amid suffering?
- How are the meanings and management of pain negotiated in clinical encounters?
- How do gender, race and class, and perceptions of them, shape the trajectories of pain and its care?
Impact
Parenting Pain contributes to existing literature particularly by producing synthesised ethnographic insight on pain care in a public healthcare setting, and by crafting space for children’s perspectives alongside those of adults. Its social relevance draws from its ability to speak to the multiple urgent concerns that come together in the affective assemblages of pediatric pain and its care: the rapid decline in young people’s well-being in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic; the growing public health burden of chronic pain; the tensions of parenting amid burnout culture; and the future of care in Nordic post-welfare states.
Funding
The project was initiated with funding under the Kone Foundation -funded GenDis project, and continued as an Academy Research Fellowship funded by the Research Council of Finland