Welcome to the UCLA Center for the Interdisciplinary Study and Treatment of Pain.

The UCLA Center for the Interdisciplinary Study and Treatment of Pain included UCLA faculty and students from pediatrics, history, sociology, anthropology and psychology.  From 2002 to 2007, we conducted a research project on chronic pain in children, sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health, in which we used narrative, linguistic, and statistical analysis to better understanding the sociocultural and medical dimensions of this understudied problem.  We collected data on 179 children who attended the UCLA Pediatric Clinics with chronic pain problems during this period, and conducted long-form, semi-structured interviews with 72 of the children and 37 of their parents.  The study was co-directed by Margaret Jacob, PhD, Professor of History and Lonnie Zeltzer, MD, Professor of Pediatrics.


Publications from this study include the following:

Margaret C. Jacob, "Historians with Pain," Perspectives on History  November 2005.

Jennie C. I. Tsao, Marcia L. Meldrum, Brenda Bursch, Margaret C. Jacob, Su C. Kim, & Lonnie K. Zeltzer. "Treatment expectations for CAM interventions in pediatric chronic pain patients and their parents."  Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2 (Dec 2005):  521-527.  PMCID:  16322810

Brenda Bursch, Jennie C. I. Tsao, Marcia L. Meldrum, and Lonnie K. Zeltzer. "Preliminary validation of a self-efficacy scale for child functioning despite chronic pain (child and parent versions)."  Pain 125 (Nov 2006):  35-42.

Jennie C. I. Tsao, Marcia L. Meldrum, Su C. Kim, Margaret C. Jacob, and Lonnie K. Zeltzer. "Treatment preferences for CAM in children with chronic pain."  Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine 4 (Sept 2007):  367-374.  PMCID:  17965769

Jennie C. I. Tsao, Marcia L. Meldrum, Su C. Kim, and Lonnie K, Zeltzer. "Anxiety sensitivity and health-related quality of life in children with chronic pain." Journal of Pain 8 (Oct 2007):  814-823.

Ignasi Clemente, Seung-Hee Lee and John Heritage, "Children in chronic pain:  Promoting pediatric patients' symptom accounts in tertiary care."  Social Science and Medicine 66(March 2008): 1418-1428.  PMCID:  18272275

Marcia L. Meldrum, Jennie C.I. Tsao and Lonnie K. Zeltzer.  "Just be in pain and just move on":  Functioning limitations and strategies in the lives of children with chronic pain."  Journal of Pain Management 1 (April-June 2008):  131-141.  PMCID:  19430542

Jennie C.I. Tsao, Subhadra Evans, Marcia L. Meldrum, Tamara Altman, and Lonnie K. Zeltzer. "A Review of CAM for Procedural Pain in Infancy."  Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine 5 (Dec 2008):  371-381 (Part I) and 399-407 (Part II).

Jennie C.I. Tsao, Subhadra Evans, Marcia L. Meldrum, and Lonnie K. Zeltzer. "Sex differences in anxiety sensitivity among children with chronic pain and non-clinical children."  Journal of Pain Management 2 (2009): 151-161.  PMCID:  3072583

Marcia L. Meldrum, Jennie C.I. Tsao and Lonnie K. Zeltzer. "'I can't be what I want to be':  Children's Narratives of Chronic Pain Experiences and Treatment Outcomes."  Pain Medicine 10(Sept 2009):1018-1034.  PMCID:  19594848

Ignasi Clemente, "Progressivity and participation:  Children's management of parental assistance in paediatric chronic pain encounters."  Sociology of Health and Illness 31 (Sept 2009): 872-878.  PMCID:  19856490

Subhadra Evans, Rebecca Taub, Jennie CI Tsao, Marcia Meldrum and Lonnie K Zeltzer.  "Sociodemographic factors in a pediatric chronic pain clinic:  The roles of age, sex, and minority status in pain and health characteristics."  Journal of Pain Management 3 (July-Sept 2010):  273-281.  PMCID:  21686073

Subhadra Evans, Marcia Meldrum, Jennie CI Tsao, Rebecca Fraynt and Lonnie K. Zeltzer.  "Associations between parent and child pain and functioning in a pediatric chronic pain sample:  A mixed methods approach."   International Journal of Disability and Human Development 9 (2010): 11-21.   PMCID:  21643522

Ignasi Clemente, John Heritage, Marcia L. Meldrum, Jennie CI Tsao, and Lonnie K. Zeltzer.  "Preserving the Child as a Respondent: Initiating Patient-Centered Interviews in a U.S Outpatient Tertiary Care Pediatric Pain Clinic."  Communication and Medicine 9 (2012):  203–213.  PMCID:  24575675