Are there psychosocial differences in diagnostic subgroups of children with recurrent abdominal pain?

OBJECTIVES: To examine psychosocial differences in diagnostic subgroups of children with recurrent abdominal pain (RAP).
METHODS: Children meeting Apley's 1975 definition of RAP were divided according to physician ratings into three subgroups, based on the Rome II diagnostic criteria of functional gastrointestinal disorders: functional dyspepsia (n=17), irritable bowel syndrome (n=18), and functional abdominal pain (n=27). Groups were compared using measures of (a) child psychopathology, (b) parent psychopathology, and (c) child pain, somatization, and functional disability.
RESULTS: Multivariate results from a discriminant function analysis demonstrated that children classified according to these criteria could not be differentiated with respect to parent reported child psychopathology or child pain, somatization, and functional disability. There were significant univariate differences, however, between groups on parental psychopathology (F=4.39, P=0.02); parents of children with functional dyspepsia reported greater parental psychopathology symptoms than the other two groups.
CONCLUSIONS: This study provides a preliminary comparison of pain, somatization, functional impact, and psychopathology ratings in the Rome II diagnostic subclassifications of children with RAP. Further investigation utilizing larger sample sizes, pain measures specifying pain location, and parental modeling of somatic behavior is indicated to better understand potential similarities and differences between these subgroups.