Do parents reinforce somatic complaints in their children?

Abstract

Objective: To examine the influence of parental solicitousness on self-reported somatic complaints in school-age children. Design and Main Outcome Measures: Participants were 564 children (mean age 10 years) and their parents. Children completed self-report measures of somatic complaints, parental solicitousness, depressiveness, fear, and sense of coherence. Somatic complaints were assessed again 6 months later. Parents also completed a questionnaire about solicitousness. Results: Parental solicitousness as reported by children or parents was unrelated to the frequency of self-reported somatic complaints. Symptoms of depression, fear, and lower sense of coherence were associated with more somatic complaints, but did not interact with parental solicitousness. Conclusion: Parental solicitousness seems unrelated to more frequent somatic complaints in schoolchildren.

Functional Abdominal Pain in Childhood: From Etiology to Maladaptation

“…The children with medically unexplained recurrent pain were more likely to report positive or neutral consequences. In contrast, no evidence for the reinforcement of somatic symptoms through positive consequences provided by parents was found among 564 school-aged children [65]. In line with this result, Venepalli et al [52] did not find differences in solicitousness between parents of children with and without FAP.…”

“…Different studies have supported the idea that behavior of primary caregivers (modeling, operant mechanisms, dysfunctional interactions) plays a role in the development and maintenance of FAP [52,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66]. …”

Estado actual de los trastornos somatomorfos y conversivos en niños y adolescentes

“…Jellesma et al 30 comprobaron que la preocupación parental no se relacionaba con mayor freESTAdO ACTUAL dE LOS TRASTORNOS SOmATOmORFOS y CONVERSIVOS EN NIñOS y AdOLESCENTES cuencia de síntomas somáticos infantiles. Janssens et al 31 , en cambio, señalan que la sobreprotección parental predeciría síntomas somáticos funcionales en adolescentes, influyendo más directamente la de la madre sobre las hijas y la del padre sobre los hijos.…”

“…Actualmente, el reconocimiento de los TS y TC como desórdenes con plataforma traumática 15 , ha adquirido tanta importancia como su interpretación psicodinámica histórica 12,13 , mientras que la evidencia neurobioló-gica sugiere un vínculo etiológico con fenómenos evolutivos y defensivos 21,22,25 . Otras variables que se han relacionado con su aparición apuntan a la dinámica familiar 14 en torno a su funcionalidad 5,29 , al apego 27 , estresores no normativos 28 y características psicopatológicas parentales [30][31][32] . Por otra parte, un perfil de personalidad internalizante 41 y la concurrencia de ansiedad y depresión 19 favorecerían la somatización.…”

The contribution of illness perceptions to fatigue and sleep problems in youngsters with epilepsy

“…18,19 Research in non-epileptic adolescents suggests that girls usually report higher levels of fatigue and sleep problems than boys. 13,20 Furthermore, there are several studies showing that disease severity, type of seizure, unpredictability, recurrence and high frequency of seizures, longer duration of disease and some anti-epileptic drugs are linked to depression and reduced quality of life in adolescents with epilepsy. 21 Higher fatigue scores have been reported in adult patients with a longer duration of epilepsy and in tertiary epilepsy patients.…”