[Body complaints and neuroticism in pediatric patients with rheumatism].

Background: Pain and aches are part of subjective experience. Caring for chronically ill children and adolescents not only objective results but also the children s subjective perception of their illness should be taken into consideration. We have tried to record the extent of subjective suffering of a group of pediatric rheumatic patients and to correlate our findings with personality traits.
Patients and Method: We interviewed thirty-one 8 to 18 years old children and adolescents (average age 12 years) by means of a standardized questionnaire (Giessener Beschwerdefragebogen) and of a standardized personality questionnaire (HANES,KJ). The tested group comprised of 9 boys and 22 girls. 14 patients suffered from a chronic oligoarthritis, 9 from a chronic polyarthritis, 8 from a other rheumatic disease. Percentiles of more than 89 percent have been considered significant compared to norm collectives.
Results: 28% of the patients showed augmented values on the scales "exhaustion" and "intestinal pain", 25% on the scale "pain in joints". Only 3 respectively 2 patients showed augmented values on the scales "heart" and "symptoms of cold". 28% showed augmented values on the overall scale "feeling of discomfort". 35% showed augmented values on neuroticism, 61% values > 89. percentile on the scale "extraversion". There is a significant connection between augmented strong feelings of discomfort and augmented values of neuroticism on the level 0.1%. A context to the duration of the illness was not found.
Conclusion: Experience of physical pains is not only limited to isolated symptoms of the basic illness but also associated with general features of personality.