engleski

Somatic symptoms in children: Agreement between parents and children's assessment

It is well established that parental reports on the child's symptoms are essential for a full psychological assessment of children's mental health problems. Disagreements between the informants' assessments of the child's somatic symptoms have a decisive impact on diagnosis and treatment. Given the importance of obtaining and analyzing reports from multiple informants and the fact that the number of experienced somatic symptoms has increased significantly in the entire child population, the present research aims to investigate the agreement between children's and parents' assessments of the frequency and severity of somatic symptoms. The study was conducted in a primary school in Croatia and included a sample of 122 participants: 61 children (44.3% girls and 55.7% boys) aged between 11 and 14 years (average age 12.5 years ; SD =1.1) and their parents (N=61 ; 81.9% mothers, 16.4% fathers and 0.02% of the others). The participants replied on the Psychosomatic Symptoms Scale (PSS) - versions for children and for parents. PSS is a questionnaire of 35 items that evaluates the frequency and severity of somatic symptoms. The results of this study indicate that there is no significant correlation between the self-assessment of the children and the assessment of the parents regarding the somatic symptoms of the children. There was also no significant correlation between the self-assessment of the children and parents regarding their own symptoms. In addition, it was found that the parents reported that their children suffered less frequently from somatic symptoms and that these symptoms affected the child's everyday functioning less than the children claimed for themselves. These findings underline the importance of collecting information on children's mental health from multiple informants, both in research and clinical settings. The results of this study could raise clinicians' awareness of the disagreements between child and parents and of the fact that each respondent is a different but valuable source of information. Therefore, children should be questioned about their inner processes and parents should report on the child's behavior in order to gain a complete insight into the psychological and social world of the child.

somatic symptoms ; self-assessment of the child ; assessment of the parents ; Psychosomatic Symptoms Scale (PSS)

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