# Biopsychosocial predictors of opioid use for pediatric postsurgical pain

> **NIH NIH K23** · VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER · 2024 · $133,545

## Abstract

Abstract: Opioid analgesics are commonly used to manage children’s postoperative pain. Under-medication of
children’s postsurgical pain can have significant consequences including reduced quality of life, respiratory
issues, dehydration, and nausea, which can increase health care costs due to emergency department visits,
provider phone calls, and readmissions. In contrast, a proportion of parents may over-medicate children’s
postsurgical pain, potentially leading to greater respiratory depression and other opioid side effects. Given (a)
the potential repercussions of under- or over-medicating postsurgical pain in children, (b) uncertainty regarding
level of opioid analgesics needed for optimal postsurgical pain management, and (c) increasing societal focus
on the negative consequences of opioid medications, further understanding the patterns and predictors of
home opioid use and pain management following surgical procedures in children is necessary to guide
development of interventions to enhance appropriate analgesic use for pediatric postsurgical pain. The
proposed project is designed to address this gap in understanding by prospectively examining parent and child
predictors of the extent of opioid analgesic use following tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy (T&A) procedures in
pediatric patients aged 7 to 12 years. Parents and youth will complete preoperative measures regarding opioid
medication beliefs, pain-related beliefs and emotional responses, and history of painful experiences and opioid
use. At the time of IV placement for surgery, blood will be collected to assess children’s circulating
endocannabinoid levels. Following surgery, parents and youth will complete electronic diaries regarding pain,
emotions, medication use, and side-effects 3 times a day for 7 days and a 3-month follow-up survey assessing
additional opioid use and opioid disposal. The central aims of this proposal are to understand parent and child
factors that may predict opioid analgesic use following T&A procedures in order to inform predictive models for
opioid-related outcomes following pediatric surgeries more broadly. A key innovation of this project is the
examination of joint influences of parent and child factors on postoperative opioid use patterns. We
hypothesize that parents and children who tend to catastrophize more about painful experiences, have positive
beliefs regarding opioid efficacy, and less negative beliefs regarding opioid side effects will be more likely to
use opioid medications and be less likely to dispose of opioid medications. Identifying these parent and child
predictors could allow for the development of targeted screening and patient education in order to identify
potentially modifiable targets for interventions to improve pediatric postsurgical pain management and reduce
opioid-related risks. Further, this project provides critical career development support for a young investigator
focused on developing expertise in pediatric acute pain, opi...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10815547
- **Project number:** 5K23HD104183-04
- **Recipient organization:** VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** Amanda Leigh Stone
- **Activity code:** K23 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $133,545
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2021-05-01 → 2026-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10815547

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10815547, Biopsychosocial predictors of opioid use for pediatric postsurgical pain (5K23HD104183-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10815547. Licensed CC0.

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