Childhood Somatic Complaints: Relationships with Child Emotional Functioning and Parental Factors

Abstract: Many schoolchildren experience somatic complaints such as headaches, abdominal pain and fatigue. The aim of the current research is to test the full model of previously found associations between negative affect and somatic complaints in parents and children. Participants were 199 children (aged 8-13, 47% boys) and their parents (aged 31-61, mostly mothers (87%). Self-reports of children and parents on worry, anxiety, depression and somatic complaints were used and parents' reactions to children's emotions wereassessed. The results of the study show that childhood negative affect and parental somatic complaints are positively associated with childhood somatic complaints. In turn, childhood negative affect is related to children's worrying and to parents' responses to children's emotions. The more anxious or depressed children felt, the more they worried. Maladaptive parental responses (such as reprimands and discomfort) to child emotions were positively related to depression. It was also found that parents who experienced more negative affect, reported more somatic complaints and tended to report more maladaptive responses towards their children's emotions

The effects of changes in the order of verbal labels and numerical values on children's scores on attitude and rating scales

Research with adults has shown that variations in verbal labels and numerical scale values on rating scales can affect the responses given. However, few studies have been conducted with children. The study aimed to examine potential differences in children’s responses to Likert-type rating scales according to their anchor points and scale direction, and to see whether or not such differences were stable over time. 130 British children, aged 9 to 11, completed six sets of Likert-type rating scales, presented in four different ways varying the position of positive labels and numerical values. The results showed, both initially and 8-12 weeks later, that presenting a positive label or a high score on the left of a scale led to significantly higher mean scores than did the other variations. These findings indicate that different arrangements of rating scales can produce different results which has clear implications for the administration of scales with children

The relation between anger coping strategies, anger mood and somatic complaints in children and adolescents

Attempts to explain the experience of somatic complaints among children and adolescents suggest that they may in part result from the influence of particular strategies for coping with anger on the longevity of negative emotions. To explore these relationships British (n = 393) and Dutch (n = 299) children completed a modified version of the Behavioral Anger Response Questionnaire (BARQ), and two additional questionnaires assessing anger mood and somatic complaints. A hierarchical regression analysis showed that for both the UK and Dutch samples two coping styles, Social support-seeking and Rumination, made a significant contribution to somatic complaints, over and above the variance explained by anger mood. A tendency to repeatedly think or talk about an angering event as a way of coping seems to underlie the observed negative health effects. In addition, tentative support is given for a broader range of strategies to cope with anger than just the traditionally studied anger-out and anger-in styles. © 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

Do Worry and Brooding Predict Health Behaviors? A Daily Diary Investigation

Background Meta-analyses have reported associations between perseverative cognition (both worry and brooding) and increased engagement in health-risk behaviors, poorer sleep, and poorer physiological health outcomes. Method Using a daily diary design, this study investigated the within- and between-person relationships between state and trait perseverative cognition and health behaviors (eating behavior, physical activity, alcohol consumption, and sleep) both crosssectionally and prospectively. Participants (n = 273, 93% students, Mage = 20.2, SD = 4.11, 93% female) completed morning and evening diaries across 7 consecutive days. Results Multilevel modeling analyses revealed that, cross-sectionally, higher levels of state worry were associated with more time spent sitting and higher levels of state brooding predicted less daily walking. Conclusion Worry and brooding may represent useful intervention targets for improving inactivity and walking levels, respectively

Alexithymia in juvenile primary headache sufferers: a pilot study

Starting in the 1990s, there has been accumulating evidence of alexithymic characteristics in adult patients with primary headache. Little research has been conducted, however, on the relationship between alexithymia and primary headache in developmental age. In their research on alexithymia in the formative years, the authors identified one of the most promising prospects for research, as discussed here. The aim of this study was to verify whether there is: (a) a link between tension-type headache and alexithymia in childhood and early adolescence; and (b) a correlation between alexithymia in children/preadolescents and their mothers. This study was based on an experimental group of 32 patients (26 females and 6 males, aged from 8 to 15 years, mean 11.2 ± 2.0) suffering from tension-type headache and 32 control subjects (26 females and 6 males, aged from 8 to 15 years, mean 11.8 ± 1.6). Tension-type headache was diagnosed by applying the International Headache Classification (ICHD-II, 2004). The alexithymic construct was measured using an Italian version of the Alexithymia Questionnaire for Children in the case of the juvenile patients and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) for their mothers. Higher rates of alexithymia were observed in the children/preadolescents in the experimental group (EG) than in the control group; in the EG there was no significant correlation between the alexithymia rates in the children/preadolescents and in their mothers

My peers, my friend, and I: Peer interactions and somatic complaints in boys and girls

In this article we present two studies about the relations between peer relationships and somatic complaints in children in Den Bosch, the Netherlands. In the first study (n = 711), when the children were average 10 years old, we focused on social status as rated by classmates (popular, neglected, controversial, rejected, and average), self-reported social anxiety and somatic complaints. The second study (n = 688) conducted 1.5 years later on the same sample, focused on possible positive influences of best friends on somatic complaints. We analyzed how reciprocity of the friendship, self-reported disclosure with the nominated best friend and self-reported emotion communication skill were related to children's somatic complaints. The results indicate an influence of peer interactions on somatic complaints. Social anxiety was associated with more somatic complaints, but peer status was unrelated to somatic complaints. Further, for girls with a reciprocated best friend, emotion communication skill was related to fewer somatic complaints. For boys emotion communication skill was negatively associated with somatic complaints when their friendship was unreciprocated, whereas disclosure with the nominated peer was related to the experience of more complaints in this case. The results indicate different associations of the sharing of emotions among boys and girls with regard to somatic complaints. It should be noted that self-reports on relationships and health may overlap more than classmates' reports of peer status because of shared method variance. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

The Somatic Complaints List: Validation of a self-report questionnaire assessing somatic complaints in children

Objective: To evaluate the Somatic Complaint List (SCL) in children. Method: At T1, 365 fourth and 352 fifth graders completed the SCL, the Children's Somatization Inventory (CSI-C), and the Mood Questionnaire. Parents (n=564) completed the parental form of the CSI-C (CSI-P). Six months later, the stability of the SCL and the CSI-C was assessed. Results: The psychometric properties and stability of the SCL were good. Correlations with the CSI-C, negative moods, and the CSI-P complaints supported the validity. Moreover, the SCL was more strongly associated with negative moods and with parental reports of children's somatic complaints than the CSI-C. Conclusion: The SCL is a suitable questionnaire for assessing somatic complaints in school-aged children. © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Postponing worrisome thoughts in children: The effects of a postponement intervention on perseverative thoughts, emotions and somatic complaints

In this study we examined the prospective relationships between perseverative thoughts, internalizing negative emotions, and somatic complaints in children aged 9-13, and evaluated whether a perseverative thoughts intervention had a beneficial effect on these experiences. Children (N = 227) from 7 primary schools in Leiden, the Netherlands, recorded their perseverative thoughts during one week, 138 of whom were instructed to postpone these thoughts to a special 30 min period in the early evening. Children who had received the postponement instructions showed a reduction in the frequency of perseverative thoughts, and girls also in the duration of them. Girl's perseverative thoughts were positively associated with the number of somatic complaints and with negative emotions. The postponement intervention also seemed to reduce somatic complaints in the seventh grade children. These findings confirm the previously found prospective relationship between perseverative thoughts and children's well-being and provide initial validation for the use of the postponement intervention to reduce perseverative thoughts in this age group, particularly for girls.Children Pain Worry Rumination Prevention The Netherlands Intervention