ASSOCIATION OF HELICOBACTER PYLORI INFECTION WITH RECURRENT ABDOMINAL PAIN

Abstract

Background; Recurrent abdominal pain has significant impact on the quality of life of the children in terms of education, physical activity and sports. This study was done to ascertain the frequency of H. pylori in children presenting with recurrent abdominal pain in our local population. Objective; To determine the frequency of H. Pylori infection in children with recurrent abdominal pain.  Material and Methods; This descriptive, cross-sectional study was done at Department of Pediatric Medicine, Nishtar Hospital Multan. Total duration of the study was 12 months from 01-11-2016 to 01-11-2017. A total of 148 children with recurrent abdominal pain were recruited in our study using non – probability consecutive sampling technique. All data was entered and analyzed by using SPSS version 18. Results; Of these 148 study cases, 83 (56.1 %) were boys while 65 (43.9%) were girls. Mean age of our study cases was 7.60 ± 1.85 years. Mean height of our study cases was 84.53 ± 16.32 centimeters, mean weight of our study cases was 22.34 ± 4.67 kilograms and mean hemoglobin level was 12.27 ± 0.98 g/dl. Of these 148 study cases,  77 (52%) were from rural areas, 103 (69.6 %) were from poor families, 38 (25.7%) reported their source of drinking water was Govt. supply and 110 (74.3%) reported hand pump as their source of drinking water. Mean duration of illness was noted to be 5. 24 ± 2.05 months and 110 (74.3%) presented with disease duration within 6 months. Mean no. of episodes was 6.59 ± 2. 13 and 109 (73.6 %) presented with more than 5 episodes. Helicobacter pylori was positive in 78 (52.7%) and was negative in 70 (47.3%) of our study cases. Conclusion; Frequency of Helicobacter pylori was very high in our study in patients with recurrent abdominal pain. Helicobacter pylori was significantly associated with male gender, increasing and poor socioeconomic status. All clinicians treating such patients should investigate for Helicobacter pylori infection for proper management of these patients which will improve their productivity in terms of education and sports.

Keywords; Recurrent abdominal pain, H. pylori, Frequency.