Life events occurring in families of children with recurrent abdominal pain.

Thirty children with recurrent abdominal pain (RAP) were compared to 67 behaviorally disordered (BD) children and 42 healthy children on number of life events experienced within the last 12 months and on amount of readjustment necessitated by these life events. The parents of these children were also compared on these variables as well as on a subjective rating of stress which they assigned to the life events. The results revealed that the children in the RAP and BD groups had significantly more life events and more stress associated with them than did the healthy children. However, the children in the RAP and BD groups differed in type of life events, with the RAP group more likely to have experienced life events related to illness, hospitalization, and death. There were no significant differences between the parents in the RAP group and the parents of the two comparison groups. Due to methodological limitations of the study, caution should be exercised in drawing conclusions from these findings until such time that future research provides confirmatory data.