IMPACT OF FUNCTIONAL CONSTIPATION ON PSYCHOSOCIAL FUNCTIONs OF CHILDREN

Abstract

SUMMARY O ur scope was to detect the difference in psychosocial function between children with functional constipation and a comparable group of healthy controls with a normal bowel habits , and to detect the effect of the problem on their life style , daily activity, behavioral performance and social relations . Also we aimed at detecting the presence or absence of significant correlation between FC and negative impact on behavior and social relations to early detection and referral of these patients for early treatment to get better quality of life for those children and their families. . The study was conducted on two groups; Patients Group: Fifty patients with Functional constipation recruited from the Pediatrics Gastrointestinal Clinic, Children's hospital, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University with age range from 4 to 12 years with a mean age of 8 years . Patients are included in the study after giving an informed consent. Control Group: Fifty apparently healthy children without constipation, age and sex matching to patient group. Thirty four of them recruited from the healthy siblings of the participating patients. recruited from the Pediatrics Gastrointestinal Clinic, Children's hospital, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University with age range from 4 to 12 years with a mean age of 8 years . All children (patients and controls) undergone a detailed history taking stressing on dietetic history including dietary fibers and fluid intake, Careful physical examination including complete anthropometric measures, Psychosocial assessment with the following: 1-IQ assessment using Stanford Binet intelligence scale. 2-Child Behavioral Chick List: CBCL 4/18 module consisting of 113 question including several items of psychosocial assessment including withdrawal, depression , sleep disorders, somatic problems, attention problems ,aggression and destructive behavior. 3-Pediatric Quality of Life Questionnaire: For child quality of life assessment of children. the used module consists of 23 question assessing impact of functional constipation on quality of life of child parents. The results of our study revealed that the quality of life among children with functional constipation was negatively affected from its different aspects including social, physical ,emotional ,psychological and school disturbance with highly significant difference between cases and controls(p=0.00). The psychosocial effect of FC on child's life appears to be prominent and considerable negative effect in which those patients are were found to be more anxious ,depressed ,withdrawn, suffering from sleep disturbance ,more liable to different types of somatic complains and social isolation with highly significant difference between cases and controls (p<0.01). Other hand there is no significant difference in IQ assessment between cases and controls (P=0.26). Revealed that there was no detected relation between the studied disease (FC) and IQ as regard our study sample.