Personality profiles and heart rate variability (vagal tone) in children with recurrent abdominal pain

The aim of the study was to explore psychological factors and autonomic act ivity in children with recurrent abdominal pain and to compare them with th ose in a control group of healthy children. The Personality Inventory for C hildren was used for assessment of developmental, emotional and psychosocia l factors in 25 children with recurrent abdominal pain (age, 7-15 y). Paras ympathetic and sympathetic functions in these children and in 23 healthy co ntrol subjects (age, 7-13 y) were also investigated, non-invasively using a computerized polygraph. Vagal tone (parasympathetic function) was indexed by calculation of respiratory sinus arrhythmia in beats/min. Skin conductan ce (sympathetic function) was recorded by the constant current method. On t he Personality Inventory for Children, 16 patients had high scores on somat ic concern. Several patients had scores in the clinical range for depressio n, withdrawal and anxiety, but the mean scores for these personality profil e scales were well within the normal range of healthy children. Interesting ly, there was a spike on the L (Lie)-scale for most of the patients and 15 patients had scores above or close to the clinical cut-off value. As compar ed with the scores in healthy children. vagal tone and sympathetic tone wer e normal. Conclusion: Many children with recurrent abdominal pain have scores in the clinical range for depression, withdrawal, anxiety and L-scale indicating c oping problems, denial and a trend towards somatic concern that may contrib ute to the evolution of abdominal pain. Autonomic nerve activity was not di sturbed in these children.