School stressors are strongly associated with psychosomatic pain and psychological complaints in school children. Psychological complaints seem to function as mediators in the association of school stressors to psychosomatic pain symptoms to a great extent.

Economic stress, but not social class, was a significant but moderate risk factor for all three psychosomatic symptoms. It is possible that a growing proportion of families in economic stress has contributed to the parallel increase in reported psychosomatic complaints among Swedish schoolchildren. Further studies are needed to clarify the relation between lack of money, relational strain/support and psychosomatic complaints.

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This study examined the extent to which sixth grade peer status could predict anxiety and/or depression in 5,242 women and 5,004 men who were born in 1953 and whose hospital records were followed up from 1973-2003. The data used was the Stockholm Birth Cohort Study. While no association could be established for men, results indicated that women who held low peer status positions in childhood were at a considerably higher risk of anxiety and/or depression later in life compared to women in average status positions. Women who held popular positions during childhood did not differ significantly from their average counterparts. These findings persisted after adjusting for family- and child-related problem-load, perceived security at school, family constellation, socioeconomic status as well as the child's cognitive ability, ninth grade school marks and continuance to upper secondary school.

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This study explores the psychosocial working conditions of 7930 Swedish 9th grade students, distributed over 475 classes and 130 schools, in relation to their subjective health using multilevel modeling. At the individual level, students with “strained” working conditions in school (i.e. those experiencing a high level of demands in combination with a low level of control) demonstrated significantly worse health compared to students in “low‐strain” situations. “Strained” conditions in combination with a weak school‐related sense of coherence were especially unfavourable for health. These findings remained significant when support from teachers, school marks, norm‐breaking behaviours, family‐relations and certain class‐ and school‐contextual conditions were adjusted for. Thus, while demands are an essential part of school work, this study suggests that high levels of control and a strong school‐related sense of coherence can protect against the more detrimental effects on health that high demands at school may cause.

In the Swedish population, the number of support resources was linked to health problems, indicating the usefulness of a diverse resource pool. The multidimensional approach revealed that economic support, company, and, to a more limited extent, the opportunity to discuss personal problems were most important.

No abstract