Pain is a common experience in children and adolescents that is usually temporarily disabling.
However, a significant proportion of children/adolescents continue to experience substantial pain
and disability. Emerging evidence among adults suggests that appraisals of injustice, conceptualized
as cognitions comprising attributions of blame and irreparability of loss due to pain contribute to
adverse pain-related outcomes. Preliminary results among children/adolescents are quite congruent
with those of the adult literature, indicating that child/adolescent appraisals of injustice contribute
to deleterious pain outcomes. However, research on the role of pain-related injustice appraisals in
children is in its infancy. Specifically, existing research relies almost exclusively on the Injustice
Experience Questionnaire (IEQ). While validated among adult populations, it is premature to extend
understanding and assessment of adult appraisals of pain to child appraisals of pain. Furthermore,
little is known about mechanisms of action through which perceived injustice exerts its impact. The
objectives of this research are to examine (1) the phenomenology of child/adolescent injustice
appraisals in response to pain (including conditions under which such appraisals arise), (2) their
impact upon child pain outcomes and parental responses to child pain, and (3) the explanatory role
of anger indexed by attentional processing and expressive behaviour, in addition to traditional selfreport.