Clinicians' assessment of stress occurring with toddler's diarrhoea

From biographical and behavioural data, four clinicians independently rated the degree of stress as either due to general environmental influences or induced by family relationships likely to act upon two groups of children--one with toddler's diarrhoea and a matched control group with other physical disorders. Each clinician rated the experimental group significantly higher on both scales of stress than the control group; inter-rater correlation was positive and significant. The results suggest that environmental stress influences are associated with the aetiology and maintenance of toddler's diarrhoea, and imply that modification of such stress is relevant to treatment of the condition.