Chronic abdominal pain and depression. Epidemiologic findings in the United States. Hispanic Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

We report data on abdominal pain and depression from a survey of Hispanic Americans by the United States National Center for Health Statistics. The point prevalence rates of chronic abdominal pain were 4.6% in Mexican Americans and 5.8% in Cuban Americans in a total of 4175 subjects. The rate was 8.3% among 1323 Puerto Ricans. In 53% the abdominal pain came in waves. Using the Depression scale of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies (CES-D), 18.7% of Mexican and Cuban Americans with pain were found to be depressed to an extent likely to require intervention, and 40.8% of Puerto Ricans were so affected. The Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS) gave more conservative figures for major depression in terms of DSM-III, viz., 6.8% for Mexican and Cuban Americans with chronic pain, and 12.6% for Puerto Ricans with chronic pain. Logistic regression analyses demonstrated links between depression and female sex, the single state, low education and income, and chronic abdominal pain. The most consistent relationships for depression were with chronic pain, female sex and the single state. The results confirm the strong relationships between chronic pain, mood and female gender, and other socio-demographic variables.