Carl L. von Baeyer

Carl L. von Baeyer is a Canadian psychologist, academic, and author. He is a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Saskatchewan.

Von Baeyer is most known for his work on the assessment of pain in children. He was awarded the 2017 Jeffrey Lawson Award for Advocacy in Children's Pain Relief from the American Pain Society. His authored works include publications in academic journals including Pain and The Journal of Pain as well as book chapters.

Von Baeyer is a Fellow of the Canadian Psychological Association. He has explored and advocated for the benefits and feasibility of a shared parenting arrangement where both parents work part-time while also spending time at home with their children.

Education
Von Baeyer completed his BA in psychology in 1971 from the University of British Columbia, followed by an MA in 1974 and PhD in 1978 from the University of Waterloo in clinical psychology.

Career
Von Baeyer joined the faculty of the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon in 1978, assuming various positions. His noteworthy roles included terms as Director of Clinical Psychology Training for the PhD program and chair of the Behavioural Sciences Research Ethics Board.

Von Baeyer founded and directed the Internship (Residency) Training in Clinical Psychology from 1982 to 1989 and pioneered the Pediatric Complex Pain Clinic Pilot Project in 2009.

Von Baeyer is a professor emeritus of Psychology at the University of Saskatchewan. After retirement from the University of Saskatchewan and moving from Saskatoon to Winnipeg, he co-chaired the Pediatric Pain Interdisciplinary Interest Group at Children's Hospital, Health Sciences Centre, Winnipeg, from 2013 to 2017. Additionally, he served as one of five co-principal investigators and co-founders of 'Pain in Child Health', a training initiative in health research funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. He chaired the ChildKind International Resource Library from 2015 to 2018.

Research
Von Baeyer has authored or co-authored over 120 research articles. His works have been cited over 17,000 times according to Google Scholar.

In his 1994 research, von Baeyer investigated whether repeated clinical pain measurement affects perceived pain intensity and distress in low-back-pain patients, finding that daily self-monitoring does not significantly alter subjective pain intensity over an 8-day period.

Much of von Baeyer's work has focused on pediatric pain. His 2001 collaborative study introduced and validated the Faces Pain Scale-Revised (FPS-R), a six-face adaptation of the original seven-face FPS for children's pain assessment. It demonstrated a strong correlation with visual analogue and colored analogue scales, suitable for ages 4–12, adhering to a 0-10 metric. In a 2004 publication, he examined the impact of children's memories of painful experiences on their later reactions to pain and healthcare interventions, discussing developmental, individual, situational, and methodological factors, as well as strategies to mitigate negative consequences. In related research, he discussed the assessment of pain intensity in children aged five and older, emphasizing the importance of self-reports while also acknowledging potential biases and errors. The study also explored various pain intensity scales, their limitations, and the need for interpretation alongside other sources of information. This 2007 work provided a systematic review commissioned by Initiative on Methods, Measurement, and Pain Assessment in Clinical Trials (IMMPACT), focusing on observational pain scales for children aged 3 to 18. It identified 20 scales, recommended specific ones for acute pain contexts, and suggested further research for chronic pain assessment. In 2009, he presented validation data supporting the use of the Numerical Rating Scale (NRS) for self-report of pain intensity in children aged 8 years and older, demonstrating functional equivalence with other self-report pain scales like the Faces Pain Scale-Revised (FPS-R) and the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS). Moreover, in 2017, he co-edited a book titled Chronic and Recurrent Pain, which highlighted the prevalence and impact of pediatric chronic pain, discussing various conditions, their consequences, and advocating for improved recognition and treatment strategies to advance understanding and care for affected children.

Von Baeyer's 2018 study investigated the validity and reliability of the Verbal Numerical Rating Scale (VNRS) as a measure of pain intensity in children aged 4 to 17 years, finding strong support for its use in children aged 6 to 17 years but cautioning against its use in those aged 4 and 5 years due to weaker convergent validity. In his 2019 work, he studied clinically significant changes in pain scores among children with painful conditions, using VNRS and FPS-R scales. Taking into account initial pain intensity and patient characteristics, the study offered guidelines for clinical practice and research. A later work published in 2021 examined the suitability of simplified pain intensity scales for preschool-aged children, finding that while 3-year-olds struggle with both scales, 4-year-olds demonstrate greater accuracy with the Simplified Concrete Ordinal Scale, suggesting its potential superiority over the Simplified Faces Pain Scale.

Awards and honors

 * 2010 – Outstanding Pain Mentorship Award, Canadian Pain Society
 * 2017 – Jeffrey Lawson Award for Advocacy in Children's Pain Relief, American Pain Society

Personal life
Von Baeyer was born in Zurich, Switzerland; his family emigrated to Canada when he was one year old. He is a descendant of Johann Jacob Baeyer, a German geodesist and military officer, whose son, Adolf von Baeyer, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1905. He is the brother of Hans Christian von Baeyer, who is a Chancellor Professor of Physics at the College of William and Mary.

Books

 * Chronic and Recurrent Pain (2017) ISBN 9783038424161, L.S. Walker & C.L. von Baeyer, eds.

Selected articles

 * Hicks, C. L., von Baeyer, C. L., Spafford, P. A., van Korlaar, I., & Goodenough, B. (2001). The Faces Pain Scale–Revised: toward a common metric in pediatric pain measurement. Pain, 93(2), 173–183.
 * Jaaniste, T., Hayes, B., & von Baeyer, C. L. (2007). Providing children with information about forthcoming medical procedures: A review and synthesis. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 14(2), 124-143
 * Von Baeyer, C. L., & Spagrud, L. J. (2007). Systematic review of observational (behavioral) measures of pain for children and adolescents aged 3 to 18 years. Pain, 127(1–2), 140–150.
 * McGrath, P. J., Walco, G. A., Turk, D. C., Dworkin, R. H., Brown, M. T., Davidson, K., ... & Zeltzer, L. (2008). Core outcome domains and measures for pediatric acute and chronic/recurrent pain clinical trials: PedIMMPACT recommendations. The Journal of Pain, 9(9), 771–783.
 * Tomlinson, D., von Baeyer, C. L., Stinson, J. N., & Sung, L. (2010). A systematic review of faces scales for the self-report of pain intensity in children. Pediatrics, 126(5), e1168-e1198.