Objectives The updated Rome III criteria for pediatric functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGIDs) include new FGID categories and changes to the Rome II criteria for various FGIDs. To our knowledge, the implications of these revisions for patient classification have not been identified. The purpose of this study was to compare classification results using Rome II versus Rome III criteria for FGIDs associated with chronic abdominal pain. Patients and Methods Participants were 368 pediatric patients whose subspecialty evaluations for chronic abdominal pain yielded no evidence of organic disease. The children’s gastrointestinal symptoms were assessed with the parent-report version of the Questionnaire on Pediatric Gastrointestinal Symptoms (QPGS). Results More patients met the criteria for a pediatric pain-related FGID according to the Rome III criteria (86.6%) than the Rome II criteria (68.0%). In comparison with the results from the Rome II criteria, the Rome III criteria classified a greater percentage of children as meeting criteria for Abdominal Migraine (23.1% vs 5.7%) and Functional Abdominal Pain (11.4% vs 2.7%). Irritable Bowel Syndrome was the most common diagnosis according to both Rome II (44.0%) and Rome III (45.1%). Conclusions Changes to the Rome criteria make the Rome III criteria more inclusive, allowing classification of 86.6% of pediatric patients with medically unexplained chronic abdominal pain.

This study aimed to identify clinically meaningful profiles of pain coping strategies used by youth with chronic abdominal pain (CAP). Participants (n = 699) were pediatric patients (ages 8-18 years) and their parents. Patients completed the Pain Response Inventory (PRI) and measures of somatic and depressive symptoms, disability, pain severity and pain efficacy, and perceived competence. Parents rated their children's pain severity and coping efficacy. Hierarchical cluster analysis based on the 13 PRI subscales identified pain coping profiles in Sample 1 (n = 311) that replicated in Sample 2 (n = 388). Evidence was found of external validity and distinctiveness of the profiles. The findings support a typology of pain coping that reflects the quality of patients' pain mastery efforts and interpersonal relationships associated with pain coping. Results are discussed in relation to developmental processes, attachment styles, and treatment implications.

This study examined the incidence and correlates of functional gastrointestinal symptoms in children with anxiety disorders. Participants were 6-13 year old children diagnosed with one or more anxiety disorders (n = 54) and non-clinical control children (n = 51). Telephone diagnostic interviews were performed with parents to determine the presence and absence of anxiety disorders in children. Parents completed a questionnaire that elicited information about their child's gastrointestinal symptoms associated with functional gastrointestinal disorders in children, as specified by the paediatric Rome criteria (Caplan et al., Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology & Nutrition, 41, 296-304, 2005a). Parents and children also completed a symptom severity measure of anxiety. As expected, children with anxiety disorders were significantly more likely to have symptoms of functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGID), compared to children without anxiety disorders. That is, 40.7 % of anxious children had symptoms of a FGID compared to 5.9 % of non-anxious control children. Children with anxiety disorders were significantly more likely to have symptoms of functional constipation, and showed a trend for a higher incidence of irritable bowel syndrome symptoms compared to non-anxious control children. Furthermore, higher anxiety symptom severity was characteristic of anxious children with symptoms of FGID, compared to anxious children without FGID symptoms and non-anxious control children. Also, children with anxiety disorders, regardless of FGID symptoms, were more likely to have a biological family member, particularly a parent or grandparent, with a gastrointestinal problem, compared to non-anxious control children. The high incidence of FGID symptoms in children with anxiety disorders warrants further research on whether gastrointestinal symptoms reduce following psychological treatments for childhood anxiety disorders, such as cognitive behavioural therapy.

This study sought to evaluate the extent to which the pain coping profiles observed by Walker and colleagues [28] in a sample of patients with chronic abdominal pain also were evident in a sample of adolescent patients who presented to a tertiary care clinic for evaluation of a variety of diverse pain conditions. In addition, we aimed to evaluate the relation of these pain coping profiles to patients’ emotional and physical functioning. Participants (n = 254) were adolescent patients aged 12–17 years. Patients completed the Pain Response Inventory (PRI) as well as measures of pain, somatic symptoms, anxiety and depressive symptoms, and functional disability. Using the PRI classification algorithm developed by Walker and colleagues [28], we successfully classified all the patients in our sample. We also found that the pain coping profiles successfully differentiated among patients with different levels of symptoms, disability, and emotional distress, further demonstrating the external validity of these profiles. Results have implications for tailoring pain treatment interventions to patients’ particular coping profiles.

This study investigated attentional biases for pain and social threat versus neutral stimuli in 54 youth with functional abdominal pain (FAP) and 53 healthy control subjects (ages 10 to 16 years). We assessed attentional bias using a visual probe detection task (PDT) that presented pain and social threat words in comparison to neutral words at conscious (1250 ms) and preconscious (20 ms) presentation rates. We administered the PDT before and after random assignment of participants to a laboratory stressor—failure versus success feedback regarding their performance on a challenging computer game. All analyses controlled for trait anxiety. At the conscious rate of stimulus presentation, FAP patients exhibited preferential attention toward pain compared with neutral stimuli and compared with the control group. FAP patients maintained preferential attention toward conscious pain stimuli after performance feedback in both failure and success conditions. At the preconscious rate of stimulus presentation, FAP patients’ attention was neutral at baseline but increased significantly toward pain stimuli after performance feedback in both failure and success conditions. FAP patients’ somatic symptoms increased in both failure and success conditions; control youth’s somatic symptoms only increased after failure. Regarding social threat, neither FAP nor control youth exhibited attentional bias toward social threat compared with neutral stimuli at baseline, but both FAP and control youth in the failure condition significantly increased attention away from social threat after failure feedback. Results suggest that FAP patients preferentially attend to pain stimuli in conscious awareness. Moreover, performance evaluation may activate their preconscious attention to pain stimuli.