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BMC Pediatrics
Published in: BMC Pediatrics 1/2017

Open Access 01-12-2017 | Research article

Thermal quantitative sensory testing in healthy Dutch children and adolescents standardized test paradigm and Dutch reference values

Authors: Gerbrich E. van den Bosch, Monique van Dijk, Dick Tibboel, Abraham J. Valkenburg

Published in: BMC Pediatrics | Issue 1/2017

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Abstract

Background

Quantitative sensory testing (QST) is often used to measure children’s and adults’ detection- and pain thresholds in a quantitative manner. In children especially the Thermal Sensory Analyzer (TSA-II) is often applied to determine thermal detection and pain thresholds. As comparisons between studies are hampered by the different testing protocols used, we aimed to present a standard protocol and reference values for thermal detection- and pain thresholds in children.

Methods

Our standard testing protocol includes reaction time dependent and independent tests and takes about 14–18 min to complete. Reference values were obtained from a sample of 69 healthy term born children and adolescents with a median age of 11.2 years (range 8.2 to 17.9 years old). Seventy-one children were recruited and data of 28 males and 41 females was obtained correctly. We studied possible age and sex differences.

Results

This study provides Dutch reference values and presents a standard quantitative sensory testing protocol for children with an age from 8 years onwards. This protocol appeared to be feasible, since only two out of 71 participants were not able to correctly complete the protocol due to attention deficits and were therefore excluded. We found some significant age and sex differences: females were statistically significantly more sensitive for both cold and heat pain compared to males, and the youngest children (8–9 years old) were less sensitive to detect a warm stimulus. The youngest children tend to be more sensitive to heat pain in comparison to older participants, although the difference was not statistically significant.

Conclusions

We present a feasible thermal quantitative sensory testing protocol for children and reference values that are easy to interpret and may serve as normative values for future studies.
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Metadata
Title
Thermal quantitative sensory testing in healthy Dutch children and adolescents standardized test paradigm and Dutch reference values
Authors
Gerbrich E. van den Bosch
Monique van Dijk
Dick Tibboel
Abraham J. Valkenburg
Publication date
01-12-2017
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
BMC Pediatrics / Issue 1/2017
Electronic ISSN: 1471-2431
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12887-017-0827-7

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