title: The significance of life-events as contributing factors in childhood recurrent abdominal pain in an urban community in Malaysia.
abstract: This study aimed to look at the link between childhood recurrent abdominal pain (RAP) and the presence of recent life-events in an urban community in Malaysia. School children aged from 9 to 15 years in the city of Petaling Jaya were randomly selected to fill in a questionnaire and to be interviewed. The prevalence of RAP among 1488 school children studied was 9.6% (95% confidence interval (CI), 8.18-11.25). Higher prevalences of RAP were found in children who had experienced the following life-events in the previous year: loss of a family member through death (P<.001), hospitalisation of a family member (P<.001), the child's own hospitalisation (P=.001), change of address (P<.001), change in occupation of an immediate family member (P<.001), failure in a major school examination (P<.001), bullying at school (P=.001). Following logistic regression analysis, five life-events remain significant: hospitalisation of a family member (P=.038), the child's own hospitalisation (P=.034), change in occupation of an immediate family member (P=.049), examination failure (P=.001) and bullying at school (P=.028). This study strongly suggests that recent stressful life-events are important risk-factors for RAP.
authors.affiliation: Department of Paediatrics, University of Malaya Medical Centre, 51900, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. boeycm@medicine.med.um.edu.my
authors.forename: C C
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Boey
authors.forename: K L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Goh
mesh_terms: D015746:Abdominal Pain / Q000523:psychology*; D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008296:Malaysia; D008297:Male; D012008:Recurrence; D012307:Risk Factors; D013001:Somatoform Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D014505:Urban Population