Frequency of H. Pylori infection in children with recurrent abdominal pain at a Tertiary Care Hospital.

Objectives: Recurrent abdominal pain (RAP) impacts quality of life of the children. RAP also hampers education and physical activity of the children. Current study was aimed to find out the frequency of Helicobacter pylori in children with RAP in our tertiary care hospital. Study Design: Descriptive, cross-sectional study. Setting:  Department of Pediatric Medicine, Nishtar Hospital, Multan, Period: From 27-12-2017 to 26-06-2018. Material & Methods: A total of 185 patients suffering from RAP, aged 2-12 years, with a disease duration > 3 months, were enrolled. Age of the children, gender, duration of illness, number of episodes of pain, maternal literacy, family income, residential status, source of drinking water and h.pylori infection were calculated in these children. Post stratification chi-square test was applied to see its effect on H. Pylori infection. Results: Of these 185 study cases, 101 (54.6 %) were male patients while 84 (45.4%) were female. Mean age of our study cases was 7.57 ± 1.93 years. Of A total of 95 (51.4%) children belonged to rural areas and 90 (48.6 %) to urban areas. Helicobacter pylori infection was noted in 103 (55.7%) of our study cases. When helicobacter pylori  was stratified with regards to study variables, male gender, age < 8 years, monthly family income <Rs. 35000, source of drinking water as Hand Pump and disease duration < 6 months turned out to be statistically significant (P value < 0.05). Conclusion: Frequency of H.pylori was high in children with RAP. Helicobacter pylori was significantly associated with male gender, younger age, poor socioeconomic status, source of drinking water and disease duration.