Chronic abdominal pain: a pediatric approach

To treat chronic abdominal pain in a child is a difficult task either in a therapeutic or diagnostic point of view, by the variety of its several causes, displays and evolution. It is important not only to the clinician lent also to the child's family to try to identify the possible organic and psychic etiologies; in the organic causes there are frequently gastrointestinal and genitourinary reasons, but there are many dysfunctional mechanisms that shall not be forgotten. The author believes is useful, for a better understanding, to apply Levine and Rappaport's model, that indicates four primary intervening forces of the abdominal pain; 1. predisposition, dysfunction or somatic illness; 2. habits and life style; 3. personality and learned behavior's the necessity of a deep comprehension in the relationship between term case, sometimes frustrating.