English summary: Headache, abdominal pain and sleep problems in adolescents - a psychosocial view

The results have originally been published in Luntamo T, et al. Psychosocial determinants of headache, abdominal pain, and sleep problems in a community sample of Finnish adolescents. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry 2012;21(66 Korinthenberg R. Medical aspects of chronic headache in childhood. Kirjassa: Petermann F, Wiedebusch S, Kroll T, toim. Schmerz im Kindesalter. Göttingen: Hogrefe 1994;181-90.):301-13. doi: 10.1007/s00787-012-0261-1, and are reproduced with kind permission of Springer Science+Business Media.

Aim

Headache, abdominal pain and sleep problems are common health complaints among adolescents. The aims of this study were to examine the prevalence, co-occurrence, and psychosocial determinants of self-perceived headache, abdominal pain, and sleep problems among adolescents.

Methods

The adolescents in two cities in Finland (n=2215) attending the 7th and 9th grade (age range 13 to 18 years) participated in the cross-sectional survey inquiring about frequency of headache, abdominal pain, sleep problems, and psychosocial difficulties.

Results

The six-month prevalence of weekly headache was 13%, of abdominal pain 6%, and of sleep problems 27%. Of the adolescents suffering from one symptom, 32 % reported one co-occurring symptom, and 17% two co-occurring symptoms. In the multivariate analysis, female gender, experience of psychological difficulties, emotional symptoms, smoking, victimization, and feeling not cared about by teachers were independently associated with all the individual symptoms, as well as an increasing number of symptoms.

Conclusions

Adolescents’ headache, abdominal pain and sleep problems were common and often co-occurred. An increasing frequency of each symptom and number of symptoms associated with psychosocial factors in a similar way. When an adolescent suffers from one frequent symptom, questions concerning the presence of other symptoms should also be asked. In addition, screening for psychiatric symptoms, substance use, victimization and difficulties with teachers should be included in the assessment of adolescents who suffer from recurrent headache, abdominal pain or sleep problems.