Life events and family history in children with recurrent abdominal pain.

Children suffering from recurrent abdominal pain (RAP) were compared with matched controls on measures of illness behaviour, parents' illness behaviour, early parent-child relationships and stressful life events. Relatively, the RAP children stayed away from school more, needed more attention when ill, tended to show more anxiety in various ways, had parents who reported more symptoms, and had suffered a greater number of stressful experiences in the few months before pain onset.