School‐Related Stressors, Pain Outcome Measures and Extremely Low Health‐Related Quality of Life in a Representative Sample of Hungarian Adolescents With Functional Abdominal Pain Disorders

Background Despite the growing body of evidence on paediatric chronic pain, there is a paucity of studies focusing on school stressors, internationally recommended core outcome measures for chronic pain and chronic disabling pain in adolescents with functional abdominal pain disorders (FAPDs). Methods We conducted a cross‐sectional, nationwide study in a representative sample of 657 adolescents (51.1% girls, median age 15.0 [IQR 13.0–17.0] years) including 62 adolescents with FAPDs. We used study‐specific questionnaires to explore school stressors, core outcome measures of pain and other somatic symptoms. We deployed multiple regression analyses to identify predictors of extremely low health‐related quality of life (HRQOL). Results Amongst adolescents with FAPDs, school stressors and frequent harassment were significantly more prevalent; extraintestinal pain was reported by 54.8%, and 11.3% have reported continuous or daily pain. Significantly lower HRQOL, a higher number of missed school days and more frequent use of pain medication were identified. In the FAPD group, 14.5% ( N = 9) adolescents reported extremely low HRQOL, which was associated with verbal harassment, multisite pain and higher frequency of pain on multivariate analysis. Conclusions Our results suggest that a portion of adolescents with FAPD may suffer from chronic disabling pain with extremely low HRQOL. These results may guide more accurate diagnostics of FAPDs.