Commentary: Impact of an interdisciplinary and international research training initiative: the Pain in Child Health program

Abstract

First paragraph: The field of pediatric pain has grown substantially since its inception in the early 1980s, which is reflected in an increasing number of publications, key textbooks, international meetings and training programs. We recently published a review summarizing meta-trend and bibliometric characteristics of the pediatric pain literature between 1975 and 2010, which confirmed a continuous, substantial increase in published research on pain processes in children between 0 and 18 years. The majority of the literature investigated pain characterization, intervention or assessment techniques in clinical samples of children between 6 and 18 years (Caes et al., 2016). A strength of our comprehensive review is the freely available dataset, which allows for more indepth analyses that go beyond the general conclusions drawn in the paper.