SALT LAKE CITY — Abdominal pain and other gastroenterologic symptoms commonly occurred in 48 school-children but improved with time and did not keep the students out of school, according to results of a prospective study.
In the first systematic, community-based study of GI symptoms in North American schoolchildren, 48 white fourth and fifth graders in an urban private school were asked to fill out weekly confidential, eight-item symptom surveys for 16 weeks, generating 690 out of 768 possible survey responses (or children-weeks).
Students reported at least one GI symptom in 60% of children-weeks and reported headaches in 70% of children-weeks, said Dr. Miguel Saps and Dr. Carlo Di Lorenzo in a poster presentation at the annual meeting of the North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition.
The prevalence of abdominal pain decreased significantly, from 64% of children-weeks in the first month of the study to 33% in the last month. All other symptoms decreased in prevalence over time, although not significantly.
“The natural improvement of every GI symptom can justify delaying invasive testing” and may help to reassure physicians and parents about the short-term progression of these symptoms, said Dr. Saps of Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago and Dr. Di Lorenzo of Columbus (Ohio) Children's Hospital. The study was conducted while both physicians were at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh.
The decline in symptoms suggests a decrease in stress as school progressed or, alternatively, seasonal variation in symptoms between the start of the study in February and the end of it in June, the doctors suggested.
'The natural improvement of every GI symptom can justify delaying invasive testing.' DR. DI LORENZO