The Soma Assessment Interview: new parent interview on functional somatic symptoms in children.
OBJECTIVE
Medically unexplained or functional somatic symptoms (FSS) in children constitute a major clinical problem. Epidemiological studies of this phenomenon are, however, hampered by a lack of good standardized measures. The objective of this study was therefore to (1) develop a parent-report measure of FSS in children aged 5-10 years and (2) perform an initial validation.


METHODS
A parent interview, the Soma Assessment Interview (SAI), for FSS detection in young children was developed for lay interviewers with subsequent clinical assessment. A preliminary validation was based on interview tests of the parents of 54 children with well-defined physical disease, 59 with likely functional disorder and 105 from the community. Independent measures of the somatic complaints were completed before the interview, and children from the clinical samples were also assigned independent FSS diagnoses based on medical record review.


RESULTS
The Kappa value for two clinical assessors' agreement on FSS recognition was 0.86. Good discrimination was obtained between a community sample and a clinical sample with an expected high prevalence of FSS. In the former convergent validity with independent measures of somatic complaints was found. In the latter substantial agreement (89%) appeared between a medical record diagnosis of FSS and SAI detection of FSS.


CONCLUSIONS
The SAI offers comprehensive description of FSS in young children in population-based studies and may also prove useful in clinical settings. It is readily accepted and relatively quickly completed, and preliminary assessment of its validity is promising.
Rask
Charlotte Ulrikka
CU
Research Clinic for Functional Disorders and Psychosomatics, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus C, Denmark. c.rask@dadlnet.dk
Christensen
Mogens Fjord
MF
Borg
Carsten
C
Søndergaard
Charlotte
C
Thomsen
Per Hove
PH
Fink
Per
P
D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D010290:Parents; D010552:Personality Assessment; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013001:Somatoform Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires