Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of pain and characteristics of pain (frequency, duration, intensity) among children and adolescents and to compare them across different age and gender groups. Methods: 735 children and adolescents aged 10–18 y from schools in the Luebeck region of Germany were surveyed using a modified German version of the self‐completion pain questionnaire of Perquin and co‐workers. Results: 715 out of 735 questionnaires (97.3%) were returned completed. Pain during the preceding 3 mo was reported by 85.3% (n= 610) of the respondent children and adolescents. The prevalence of pain increased with age. The most common complaints were headache (65.6%), abdominal pain (47.7%), limb pain (46.4%) and back pain (38.6%). A pain duration of longer than 3 mo was reported by 45.5% (35.4% for longer than 6mo). Pain once a week or more frequently was reported by 33.7% of children and adolescents. Conclusion: Almost half of the surveyed children and adolescents had suffered complaints for longer than 3 mo. The experience of pain in general and especially pain with a duration of longer than 3 mo is very common in children and adolescents, and requires further attention. Further studies are necessary to investigate the natural course, functional implications and prognosis due to pain complaints in children and adolescents.

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Sixty-seven in-patients, admitted to neurological or surgical wards of an acute hospital, were repeatedly interviewed during an average stay of 15 days to test their need for information about their illness, their satisfaction with information received and their knowledge about their illness. Parallel to these interviews psychometric tests were performed on the second, seventh and penultimate day of the hospital stay, in the evening, to assess the extent of any disturbance in their subjective condition. Independent of the initial state, there were consistently less favourable results in those patient groups which (using several indicators) had a deficit in subjective information. These group-specific differences were in part statistically significant. An intervening influence of 12 personality dimensions was not definitely established. These findings support the hypothesis that deficient instruction and information of in-patients represents an important stress component which in the majority of these patients can give rise to an objectifiable psychosocial hospitalism.

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