An international survey of pain in adolescents

BMC Public Health

Christopher Gerard Maher⁴  Veronika Ottová-Jordan²  Inese Gobina¹  Steven James Kamper⁵  Nicholas Henschke³  Michael Steven Swain⁴ 

[1] Department of Public Health and Epidemiology, Riga Stradinš University, Riga, Latvia;Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, and Psychosomatics, Research Unit Child Public Health, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany;Institute of Public Health, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany;Musculoskeletal Division, The George Institute for Global Health, Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia;Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, EMGO + Institute, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

关键词: HBSC;    World Health Organisation;    Epidemiology;    Prevalence;    Adolescent;    Pain;   

Others  :  1131421
DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2458-14-447

 received in 2013-11-08, accepted in 2014-05-07,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

A common belief is that pain is uncommon and short lived in adolescents. However, the burden of pain in adolescents is unclear because of limitations in previous research. The aim of this study is to estimate the prevalence of headache, stomach-ache and backache in adolescents and to explore the extent to which these three forms of pain coexist based upon a representative sample of adolescents from 28 countries.

Methods

Data were analysed from three consecutive waves (1997/98, 2001/02 and 2005/06) of the Health Behavior in School-aged Children: WHO Collaborative Cross-National survey (HBSC). Prevalence estimates are based upon adolescents who reported experiencing headache, stomach-ache or backache at least monthly for the last 6 months.

Results

There were a total of 404,206 participants with a mean (±SD) age of 13.6 (±1.7) years (range 9.8 to 17.3 years). The prevalence of headache was 54.1%, stomach-ache 49.8%, backache 37%, and at least one of the three pains 74.4%. Girls had a higher prevalence of the three pains than boys and the prevalence of pain increased with age. Headache, stomach-ache and backache frequently coexist, for example, of those with headache: 21.2% had headache alone, 31% suffered from both headache and stomach-ache, 12.1% suffered from backache and headache, and 35.7% had all three pains.

Conclusions

Somatic pain is very common in adolescents, more often coexisting than occurring in isolation. Our data supports the need for further research to improve the understanding of these pains in adolescents.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Swain et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

Figure 1.

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