Case Control Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Pediatr. Mar 9, 2025; 14(1): 97543
Published online Mar 9, 2025. doi: 10.5409/wjcp.v14.i1.97543
Psycho-gastroenterological profile of an Italian population of children with disorders of gut-brain interaction: A case-control study
Valentina Giorgio, Ilaria Venezia, Licia Pensabene, Elisa Blasi, Donato Rigante, Paolo Mariotti, Giuseppe Stella, Gaia Margiotta, Giovanna Quatrale, Giuseppe Marano, Marianna Mazza, Antonio Gasbarrini, Eleonora Gaetani
Valentina Giorgio, Elisa Blasi, Donato Rigante, Giuseppe Stella, Gaia Margiotta, Giovanna Quatrale, Pediatric Unit, Department of Women, Children and Public Health Sciences, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario “A. Gemelli” IRCCS, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome 00168, Italy
Ilaria Venezia, Child Neuropsychiatry Unit, ASST Santi Paolo e Carlo, San Paolo Hospital, Milan 20142, Italy
Ilaria Venezia, Paolo Mariotti, Child Neuropsychiatry Unit, Department of Women, Children and Public Health Sciences, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario “A. Gemelli” IRCCS, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome 00168, Italy
Licia Pensabene, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, Pediatric Unit, University Magna Graecia, Catanzaro 88100, Italy
Giuseppe Marano, Marianna Mazza, Unit of Psychiatry, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario “A. Gemelli” IRCCS, Rome 00168, Italy
Giuseppe Marano, Marianna Mazza, Department of Neurosciences, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome 00168, Italy
Antonio Gasbarrini, Department of Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario "A. Gemelli" IRCCS, Rome 00168, Italy
Eleonora Gaetani, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario "A. Gemelli" IRCCS, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome 00168, Italy
Co-first authors: Valentina Giorgio and Ilaria Venezia.
Author contributions: Gaetani E, Giorgio V and Venezia I conceived of the idea for this manuscript; Venezia I, Margiotta G, Stella G and Quatrale G recruited patients and collected the data; Giorgio V carried out the statistical analysis; Giorgio V, Venezia I and Blasi E wrote the manuscript, with additional critical feedback provided by Rigante D and Mariotti P; Marano G and Mazza M reviewed the final paper; All authors reviewed and discussed the results and contributed to the final manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: This study was supported by the Ethics Committee of Fondazione Policlinico Universitario “A. Gemelli” IRCCS.
Informed consent statement: An informed consent has been completed by both parents and cases/controls themselves.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report having no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: The dataset used during the current study is available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement—checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Marianna Mazza, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Unit of Psychiatry, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario “A. Gemelli” IRCCS, Largo A. Gemelli 8, Rome 00168, Italy. marianna.mazza@policlinicogemelli.it
Received: June 1, 2024
Revised: October 21, 2024
Accepted: November 12, 2024
Published online: March 9, 2025
Processing time: 201 Days and 15.1 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Little is known with respect to the presence of psychological issues in association with gastrointestinal problems among children and adolescents with disorders of gut-brain interaction. The psycho-gastroenterological questionnaire could be useful to better identify such issues to tailor a possible psychological and pharmacological treatment.