Till Örebro universitet

Aim and hypothesis To explore the agreement between parentand child reported measures of somaticdistress, gastrointestinal symptoms, mentalhealth and self-rated health, in girls 9-13years old with functional abdominal pain.

Methods Secondary analysis of data from aprospective randomized controlled trialcalled the Just in TIME study (1, 2), on girlsaged 9–13 years with FunctionalAbdominal Pain Disorders (FAPDs). Weanalyzed data from instruments that bothgirls and their legal guardians answeredseparately, at study start: Childrenssomatization inventory - gastrointestinaldistress (CSSI-GI) and somatic distress(CSSI-nonGI), Self-rated health (SRH), andMental Health Symptoms (MHS).

Results Data from 121 girls (mean age 10.6 years)were analyzed, including 74 with FAPD and47 with Irritated Bowel Syndrom. For CSSI-GIthe girls reported a mean score of 6.98 (SD4.39) and the guardians 7.27 (4.31) with anintraclass correlation (ICC) of 0.84 (p<0.001).Corresponding numbers for CSSI-nonGI were8.75 (6.51) and 6.79 (5.05), ICC 0.75(p<0.001). The weighted Cohen’s kappa was0.32 (p<0.001) for SRH and for the MHS itemsthe kappa varied from 0.20 to 0.52, allsignificant.

Discussion The findings reveal good agreement forgastrointestinal and general somaticsymptoms but lower agreement whenreporting mental and general health.

Importance Understanding parent-child agreement in self-reported health measures enhances insight intohow symptoms are perceived across informants and contexts. It also informs when and forwhom a child’s self-report may be considered sufficient in clinical or research settings.