title: Physical and emotional health of mothers of youth with functional abdominal pain.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To determine if mothers of youth with functional abdominal pain (FAP) experience more anxiety, depressive, and somatic symptoms and disorders than mothers of unaffected children.
  
  
  METHODS
  Case-control study.
  
  
  METHODS
  Four primary care pediatric practices in western Pennsylvania.
  
  
  METHODS
  Mothers of 8- to 15-year-old children and adolescents presenting with FAP (59 cases) or for routine care in the absence of recurrent pain (76 controls).
  
  
  METHODS
  Questionnaires and blinded interviews assessing anxiety, depressive, and somatic symptoms and disorders; quality of life; and service use.
  
  
  RESULTS
  On univariate analyses, mothers of FAP cases were significantly more likely than mothers of controls to have a lifetime history of irritable bowel syndrome (odds ratio [OR], 3.9; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.5-10.3), migraine (OR, 2.4; 95% CI, 1.1-5.3), and anxiety (OR, 4.8; 95% CI, 2.2-10.6), depressive (OR, 4.9; 95% CI, 2.2-11.0), and somatoform (OR, 16.1; 95% CI, 2.0-129.8) disorders than mothers of controls, and current anxiety, depressive, and somatic symptoms, poorer overall quality of life, and greater use of ambulatory health, but not mental health, services. Multivariate logistic regression found pediatric FAP to be most closely associated with maternal history of anxiety and depression (adjusted OR, 6.1; 95% CI, 1.8-20.8).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Columbus Children's Hospital, The Ohio State University, Columbus 43205, USA. campoj@chi.osu.edu
authors.forename: John V
authors.initials: JV
authors.lastname: Campo
authors.forename: Jeff
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bridge
authors.forename: Amanda
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lucas
authors.forename: Steven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Savorelli
authors.forename: Lynn
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Walker
authors.forename: Carlo
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Di Lorenzo
authors.forename: Satish
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Iyengar
authors.forename: David A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Brent
mesh_terms: D015746:Abdominal Pain / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D016241:Child of Impaired Parents / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015897:Comorbidity; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008603:Mental Health; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D016017:Odds Ratio; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration; D013001:Somatoform Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires