The significance of life-events as contributing factors in childhood recurrent abdominal pain in an urban community in Malaysia

This study aimed to look at the link between childhood recurrent abdominal pain (RAP) and the presence of recent life-events in an urban community in Malaysia. School children aged from 9 to 15 years in the city of Petaling Jaya were randomly selected to fill in a questionnaire and to be interviewed. The prevalence of RAP among 1488 school children studied was 9.6% (95% confidence interval (CI), 8.18-11.25). Higher prevalences of RAP were found in children who had experienced the following life-events in the previous year: loss of a family member through death (P