Medically unexplained symptoms in children and adolescents: Illness-related self-concept and parental symptom evaluations

According to cognitive-behavioral models, illness-related symptom evaluations and self-concepts play a pivotal role in the development and maintenance of medically unexplained somatic symptoms (MUS). However, illness-related cognitions related to MUS have rarely been studied in children/adolescents...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of behavior therapy and experimental psychiatry Vol. 68; p. 101565
Main Authors: Jungmann, Stefanie M., Witthöft, Michael
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Netherlands Elsevier Ltd 01.09.2020
Elsevier Science Ltd
Subjects:
Adolescents
Anxiety
Behavior problems
Child development
Childhood
Children
Children and adolescents
Cognitive-behavioral factors
Functional somatic symptoms
Health
Health norms
Idiopathic
Illnesses
Implicit beliefs
Interoceptive predictive coding model
Medically unexplained somatic symptoms
Mental health
Parent-child relations
Parents & parenting
Prediction models
Self concept
Self esteem
Somatic symptoms
Somatoform disorders
Symptoms
Teenagers
Tests
Children and adolescents
Somatoform disorders
Functional somatic symptoms
Interoceptive predictive coding model
Medically unexplained somatic symptoms
ISSN:0005-7916, 1873-7943, 1873-7943
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:According to cognitive-behavioral models, illness-related symptom evaluations and self-concepts play a pivotal role in the development and maintenance of medically unexplained somatic symptoms (MUS). However, illness-related cognitions related to MUS have rarely been studied in children/adolescents and their parents. Seventy-eight children and adolescents (M = 14.2 years; 59% female) performed two versions of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) to measure the implicit illness-related and the implicit anxiety-related self-concept. Illness-related evaluations of unspecific symptoms were assessed via the Health Norms Sorting Task (HNST), and MUS as well as characteristics of somatic symptom disorder (SSD) via questionnaires. MUS were significantly positively associated with the explicit (r = 0.30, p < .01) and implicit illness-related self-concept (r = 0.24, p = .04), but not with the anxiety-related self-concept (r = 0.15, p = .18). The implicit illness-related self-concept explained incremental variance in MUS (ΔR2 = 0.05, p = .04) beyond the explicit illness-related self-concept. Regarding health anxiety, parental illness-related symptom evaluations moderated the relationship between child-reported severity of MUS and health anxiety (B = 0.12, p < .01). Some measures have been adapted for childhood and adolescence, but validations on larger samples are still pending. A disorder-specific self-concept of being ill, as well as parental symptom evaluations, seem to play an essential role in MUS and health anxiety in childhood and adolescence. Due to the importance of the top-down processes found here, the findings are in line with current predictive coding models of somatic symptom perception. •Medically unexplained somatic symptoms (MUS) are common in children and adolescents.•In children/adolescents, MUS are associated with an illness-related self-concept.•How parents evaluate symptoms is associated with children's health anxiety.•Findings are in line with predictive-processing approaches to symptom perception.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 14
content type line 23
ISSN:0005-7916
1873-7943
1873-7943
DOI:10.1016/j.jbtep.2020.101565