Psychosocial Factors and Psychiatric Disorder in Childhood Chronic Abdominal Pain

Childhood chronic abdominal pain usually doesn’t have an organic etiology. It may cause social impairment and emotional distress in children as well as their families. In view of cognitive and behavioral aspect, passive coping style, maladaptive social modeling, and reinforced secondary gain could contribute to the development and maintenance of pediatric somatization. Integrative etiological model includes biological factors due to the enteric sensitization process, psychosocial factors which encompass family influences, psychodevelomental vulnerability, and life event-related stress. These factors interact with each other and manifest as various psychosomatic symptoms. In the treatment of childhood chronic abdominal pain, multimodal treatment program, which includes cognitive behavioral therapeutic methods, emotional support, family education, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, and so on, is known to be most effective. (Korean J Pediatr Gastroenterol Nutr 2011; 14(Suppl 1): S25∼S33)