Somatic Symptom and Related Disorders in Children and Adolescents: Evaluation of a Naturalistic Inpatient Multidisciplinary Treatment

Overview

Journal Child Adolesc Psychiatry Ment Health

Publisher Biomed Central

Date 2018 Jul 11

PMID 29988308

Citations 9

Authors

Pola Heimann

Beate Herpertz-Dahlmann

Jonas Buning

Norbert Wagner

Claudia Stollbrink-Peschgens

Astrid Dempfle

Georg G von Polier

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: This naturalistic study assesses the effectiveness of inpatient multidisciplinary treatment of children and adolescents with somatic symptom disorders (SSD) and investigates the role of pain coping strategies and psychiatric comorbidity (anxiety, depression).

Methods: Sixty children and adolescents (mean age 14.4 years) with SSD who underwent inpatient multidisciplinary treatment were assessed regarding their school attendance, levels of discomfort, coping strategies and psychiatric comorbidity (depression, anxiety) at pretreatment, discharge and 6 months following treatment.

Results: At discharge, the children and adolescents reported improvements in their level of discomfort, psychiatric comorbidities (anxiety, depression) and pain coping strategies, with medium to large effect sizes. Six months following treatment, the improvements remained stable, including significantly higher school attendance rates ( = 1.6; < 0.01). Improvement in pain coping was associated with increased school attendance.

Conclusion: Inpatient multidisciplinary treatment is effective in reducing levels of discomfort, psychiatric comorbidity (anxiety, depression), and school absence and in improving coping strategies.

Citing Articles

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The experience of Thai adolescents with depression: A qualitative study.

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Climate change and extreme weather disasters: evacuation stress is associated with youths' somatic complaints.

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