Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
ARTICLESTrajectories of Symptoms and Impairment for Pediatric Patients With Functional Abdominal Pain: A 5-Year Longitudinal Study
Section snippets
Sample
The sample was consecutive new pediatric patients evaluated at a tertiary care center for abdominal pain and followed for 5 years. Patients between the ages of 6 and 18 years were eligible if, by parental report, they had no other chronic illness or handicapping condition. Of 302 subjects initially contacted, 16 declined, 50 did not meet eligibility, and 31 had incomplete medical examinations, resulting in a sample of 205. Only patients without evidence of organic disease (132/205; 66%) were
Descriptive Statistics
Table 1 reports the characteristics of all of the study variables for the entire sample at baseline. Sample sizes for dependent variables varied by measure and time point. For the CSI, the baseline sample was 132. Subsequent time points each had smaller sample sizes because of an inability to locate families. At time 2, the CSI sample was 124; at time 3, it was 131; and at time 4, it was 112. For the FDI, the sample size at each time point was 118, 123, 128, and 111, respectively.
Reliability of Measures
Baseline
DISCUSSION
This study identified relatively long-term trajectories of symptoms and impairment in pediatric patients with abdominal pain without identifiable organic disease. Three distinct trajectories of change described the course of symptoms and functional impairment. The majority of patients fell into a group labeled low risk. Children and adolescents in this group initially showed relatively low levels of symptoms and impairment, improved within 2 months, and maintained those gains 1 and 5 years
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Cited by (0)
Research was supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to Lynn S. Walker (R01 HD23264) and by the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center (P30 HD15052).
Disclosure: The authors have no financial relationships to disclose.