Screening Measures for Assessing Paediatric Somatic Symptom and Related Disorders in Clinical Settings: Scoping Review Protocol

Somatic symptoms and related disorders (SSRDs) are a group of disorders defined by functional impairment due to persistent somatisation, which is the experience of physical symptoms that can’t be sufficiently explained by organic pathology. (American Psychiatric Association, 2013; Lipowski, 1988). SSRDs are common in paediatric healthcare settings, accounting for between 10% to 15% of paediatric primary care presentations, observed in 5% to 13% of inpatients and up to a third of outpatients (Andresen et al., 2011; Bujoreanu et al., 2014; Kelly et al., 2010; Shaw et al., 2016; Gieteling et al., 2011; Rask et al., 2013). Despite their high prevalence, they are poorly recognised within the healthcare system. SSRD diagnostic approaches still heavily rely on ruling out physical disease by process of elimination before considering psychiatric factors. Patients often undergo unnecessary, extensive medical testing and consultation, a time consuming, costly and frustrating process for both families and healthcare providers. (Kullgren et al., 2020; Murray et al., 2016; Rask et al., 2013; Roelf et al., 2025; Saunders et al., 2020). Consequentially, there is also a missed opportunity for early intervention, which has been shown to improve recovery outcomes in children with SSRDs (Pehlivantürk & Unal, 2002). Therefore, changes to the SSRD diagnostic process are needed to improve patient outcomes and experiences. Some of the main barriers identified in a systematic review by Murray et al. (2016) to the diagnosis of SSRDs include health care providers having limited training in SSRD diagnosis and management, prioritising a biomedical disease model and imperfect diagnostic tools. Using validated screening measures for SSRD symptoms early in the diagnositc process is way one way to address some of these barriers. To date, systematic reviews of somatic symptom assessment tools have been conducted for a range of populations and settings, including those used in adult primary care patients (Sitnikova et al., 2017) and those used in large-scale studies (Zijlema et al., 2013). However, there are no known reviews investigating SSRD screening measures used in children and adolescents presenting to clinical settings. Therefore, the aim of this review is to identify what measures are currently recommended for SSRD screening in children and adolescents presenting to clinical settings with somatic complaints.