BCTR Talks at Twelve: Catherine Riffin

Thursday, April 19, 2012 at 12:00pm to 1:00pm

Beebe Hall, Conference Room 2nd fl.

"Chronic Pain and Caregiving: A Review and Preliminary Analysis". Chronic pain is a debilitating and pervasive health concern that affects not only the individual sufferer, but also the family system at large. With the rapidly growing older population, adult children are becoming increasingly involved in the care of their aging parents. Surprisingly, research has not examined the impact of older parents’ chronic pain symptoms on their adult children. This talk will address the following questions: 1) Does chronic pain in older parents affect the parent – adult child relationship; 2) What factors may moderate the association between chronic pain and relationship quality; and 3) Does the personality of the chronic pain sufferer play a role in shaping caregiver health? Analyses of data from two separate large-scale studies will be presented, and suggestions for a research agenda on this topic will be discussed.

Catherine Riffin is currently a second year doctoral student in Human Development, in the College of Human Ecology. She received her B.A. from Mount Holyoke College in 2008, and subsequently pursued pediatric anxiety research at Brown Medical School. Since beginning her graduate studies at Cornell, she has begun to explore the relational and psychological components of aging. Her primary line of research now concerns the impact of chronic pain on family relationships in later life.