Depressive symptoms in children with recurrent abdominal pain and in their families.

Our purpose was to evaluate depression in children with recurrent abdominal pain and in their families. A self-report measure, the Children's Depression Inventory, and a psychiatric structured interview, the Child Assessment Schedule, were administered to 25 children with recurrent abdominal pain (RAP) as well as to 67 behaviorally disordered (BD) and 42 healthy children. Parents of all three groups completed the Beck Depression Inventory. On both measures, scores for RAP children were not significantly different from those of healthy children and were significantly lower than those of BD children. In contrast, the mothers of both the RAP group and the BD group had significantly higher depression scores than the mothers of healthy children. There were no group differences for fathers. The data suggest that although depression is not prevalent in children with RAP, depressive characteristics in the family may play a role in the origin of their abdominal pain.