Successful completion of treadmill testing provides relief and reassurance for children with non-specific chest pain

Non-specific chest pain is one of the leading causes of admissions in paediatric cardiology outpatient clinics, and its management usually consists of extensive reassurance of patients and their families. As we have often observed that successful completion of treadmill testing during diagnostic work-up provides relief and reassurance in these patients and their families, we planned this study to quantitatively assess anxiety levels and perception of illness among children with non-specific chest pain before and after treadmill testing.

We studied 50 children (aged 11.8 ± 3.0 years, range 7-17 years; 24 females, 26 males) with a chief complaint of non-specific chest pain and negative history and echocardiography. They were asked to fill the Revised Children's Anxiety and Depression Scale before the treadmill testing and 1-10 days after successful completion of treadmill testing.

Average total anxiety scores (36.38 ± 19.09 versus 33.36 ± 19.09, respectively) and average of total anxiety + depression scores (44.3 ± 24.92 versus 40.8 ± 26.97, respectively) of the children were found to be significantly lower after negative treadmill testing as compared to scores before testing (p < 0.05). Alterations in separation anxiety, panic, social phobia, obsession-compulsion scores were not statistically significant (p > 0.05).

Children with non-specific chest pain feel relieved and reassured after successful completion of treadmill testing. To the best of our knowledge, our study is the first in the literature to show this relationship quantitatively.