Physical and Emotional Health of Mothers of Youth With Functional Abdominal Pain

Abstract

Functional abdominal pain may be better conceptualized as a disorder of emotion than a narrowly defined disorder of gastrointestinal function. Low rates of mental health service use by mothers of youth with FAP suggest that family health and illness attitudes deserve study.

Parental Factors in Pediatric Functional Abdominal Pain Disorders

“…The increased reporting of physical symptoms by mothers of children with FAPDs is in accordance with earlier studies (11)(12)(13)(14)29). More specifically, in the present study, autonomic and GI symptoms were reported significantly more often, which may point toward presence of somatoform disorders.…”

Somatic symptom and related disorders in pediatric patients: Associations with parent psychiatric and substance use histories

“…Indeed, a maternal psychiatric history was associated with higher patient-reported somatization scores, while a paternal psychiatric history was not associated with somatization scores. Our findings were consistent with a prior study done in primary care settings in which mothers of adolescents presenting with functional abdominal pain were significantly more likely to have a lifetime history of anxiety, depressive, or somatoform disorders compared with other mothers (Campo et al, 2007). However, another study done in an outpatient setting showed a paternal history of somatic symptoms was associated with higher levels of child somatic symptoms (Walker et al, 1994).…”

Emotional and Behavioural Problems in Children With Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders

“…Importantly group differences of SDQ scores remained robust after adjustment for parental PHQ‐4 scores, indicating that observed group effects were not solely explained by parental mental health. This finding is consistent with previous literature describing bidirectional associations between parental mental health and child functioning, highlighting the relevance of family‐level mental health within a biopsychosocial framework of paediatric FGIDs [ 29 , 30 , 31 ]. Findings regarding parental separation remain inconsistent.…”