title: Agreement between prospective diary data and retrospective questionnaire report of abdominal pain and stooling symptoms in children with irritable bowel syndrome.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  In functional gastrointestinal disorders, patient recall of symptoms drives diagnostic decisions and evaluation of treatment response, and research conclusions about potential treatments. In pediatrics, parent report also impacts assessment and care. Hence, identifying methods for accurately capturing patient and parent report of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) symptoms is important. This study evaluated correspondence between retrospective questionnaire (parent and child report) and prospective diary data for children and adolescents with IBS.
  
  
  METHODS
  Participants included 50 children/adolescents with IBS per Rome III criteria. Children completed a 2-week pain and stool diary. Children and parents subsequently completed a 2-week recall questionnaire, reporting number of pain days, maximum pain, days without bowel movement, and days with diarrhea during the diary interval. Intraclass correlation coefficients and Bland-Altman plots assessed agreement.
  
  
  RESULTS
  For pain and days without bowel movement, overall agreement between child recall questionnaire and child diary was strong, although under conditions likely to facilitate agreement and with individual variation observed. Parent recall and child diary were less concordant, and agreement about diarrhea was poor for parent and child. Age did not significantly correlate with agreement.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Child questionnaire with short recall interval may be a reasonable approximation for diary data, although this varies by individual and replication/investigation of lengthier recall are needed. Relying on parent questionnaire does not appear a suitable proxy, and recall of stool form by both parent and child appears more problematic. These results combined with existing literature support use of diary data whenever possible.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.|Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.|Texas Children's Hospital, Clinical Care Center, Houston, TX, USA.
authors.forename: M M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Self
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Riley Hospital for Children, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, USA.
authors.forename: A E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Williams
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.|Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.|Texas Children's Hospital, Clinical Care Center, Houston, TX, USA.
authors.forename: D I
authors.initials: DI
authors.lastname: Czyzewski
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.|Texas Children's Hospital, Clinical Care Center, Houston, TX, USA.|Children's Nutrition Research Center, Houston, TX, USA.
authors.forename: E M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Weidler
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.|Texas Children's Hospital, Clinical Care Center, Houston, TX, USA.|Children's Nutrition Research Center, Houston, TX, USA.
authors.forename: R J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Shulman
mesh_terms: D015746:Abdominal Pain / Q000150:complications; D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D003672:Defecation; D003967:Diarrhea; D005260:Female; D055991:Health Records, Personal; D006801:Humans; D043183:Irritable Bowel Syndrome / Q000150:complications*; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: Rome III questionnaire; children and adolescents; functional gastrointestinal disorders; irritable bowel syndrome; pain diary