Chronic Abdominal Pain in Children


Many children complain of abdominal pain, and we see many either through the Paediatric Emergency Department or via Outpatients.

We would consider chronic abdominal pain to be > 3 episodes of abdominal pain over the time period of 3 months or more, affecting daily activities. This applies to children over 3 years of age. Functional abdominal pain is a very common problem in children with an estimated prevalence of 10-14% in the UK. This review from the Archives of Disease in Childhood is very helpful in deciding who to investigate further:

https://ep.bmj.com/content/98/1/32


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