Associations Between Somatic Complaints And Emotional Disorders example essay topic

Critical Thinking: Review of a research article Somatic complaints and psychopathology in children and adolescents: stomach aches, musculoskeletal pains, and headaches. Background research The article is focusing on the correlation between somatic complaints and the possibility of mental distress. It began by looking at the prevalence of certain complaints amongst children. They site a variety of different authors to state how often children suffer from headaches, limb pain and stomach aches. It also gives the important detail that Medical causes of stomach aches are identified in only 5% to 10% of all cases (Alley and Naish, 1958; Boyle, 1997; Stickler and Murphy, 1979). It continues by separating each of the discomforts into the three categories and delve deeper into the implications for each.

It states that children with stomach pain have a greater occurrence of anxiety and depressive symptoms. (A strada et al., 1981) It even went on to say that even the small percentage that has a medical diagnosis still have higher incidence certain anxiety and depression (Garber et al., 1990). Headaches, limb pain, and combination complaints have similar data. They found a difference in the results of boys and girls so they did separate them when doing the study. They found that there were more headaches and stomach aches with anxiety and depression in girls and conduct disorder in boys. (Egger et al., 1998) Methods Using the Great Smokey Mountain Study (Costello, 1996) they selected a group based on a predetermined cutoff behavioral score, then did a random 1-of-10 sampling.

They did 4 waves of studies and they analyzed children age 9-16. (Egger, et al. 1999). They then did a series of interviews with the child and their primary care-taker to established a Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Assessment (CAPA) which results in a DSM diagnoses. (Egger et al. 1999) With the use of a computer they then charted the symptoms, frequency, duration, and severity.

(An gold et al., 1995). They then established the validity of the CAPA diagnosis with 8 points, or examples that support that the findings are accurate. Then using the justified CAPA they charted somatic symptoms, being sure to rule out discomfort resulting from menstrual distress (Egger et al. 1999).

"For count data, such as the frequency of headaches, Poisson regression was used". (Egger et al. 1999). Then using Separate models for boys and girls were developed as follows: the specific somatic complaint was treated as the outcome variable. (Egger et al.

1999). "The final model contained the variables that were statistically significant (p [less than]. 05). Percentages reported in the "Results" section were all weighted population estimates". (Egger et al. 1999).

Results The results were tabulated and were examined as to their correlation between symptoms and disorders, as well as to their gender. The results found that girls experienced more stomachaches then boys, skeletal pain did not have a gender tie, and headaches referred back to a former article that focused on this pain... Sixty percent of girls with an anxiety disorder reported one or more somatic complaints, compared with 12.1% of girls without an anxiety disorder. Boys did not seem to have an anxiety, pain correlation (Egger et al. 1999). Depression seems to affect musculoskeletal pain, and while both girls and boys have increased pain when combined with depression, girls tended not to restrict activity in response to pain, where as boys did.

And finally in response to behavior management problems, boys with these issues also had increased pain where this was not the indication with girls. (Egger et al. 1999). Implications The authors established the differences between their finding and the previous studies, and then give possible reasons why the results ere slightly different. "We found gender-specific patterns of association between somatic complaints and psychopathology. Overall, the associations between somatic complaints and emotional disorders were significantly stronger in girls than in boys, while the associations between disruptive behavior disorders and somatic complaints were more robust in boys than in girls".

The major implication of this study is that many children with repeat symptoms of headache, stomachache and pain would strongly benefit from a full psychiatric study. It may also eventually help with the diagnosis and treatment of children who can not fully express their emotionally and physical pain... (Egger et al. 1999).