Long-term illness and psychosomatic complaints in children aged 2-17 years in the five Nordic countries. Comparison between 1984 and 1996

Berntsson, Leeni; Köhler, Lennart

doi:10.1093/eurpub/11.1.35

Cited by 117 publications

(119 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…The progressive worsening with age of health perception, observed here and in other studies [16,17], is consistent with well-known developmental theories, and is coherent with other findings, as the decreasing level of self-esteem in this phase of adolescence [22]. In fact, self-esteem has been found to be associated with perception of health and it could be therefore one of the mediators of this worsening effect in pre-adolescence.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

“…In particular, our results confirm the already reported trend of an increasing perception of poor health with increasing age in the pre-adolescence phase [16,17]; it also confirms the higher risk for girls to perceive a poorer health, independently of age [2,16,[18][19][20]. For the first time these phenomena have been documented in such a large number of countries, including almost the whole of Europe, plus North America and Israel.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

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Girls growing through adolescence have a higher risk of poor health

et al. 2006

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Introduction: Self rated health, in adult population, is strongly associated with mortality and life expectancy. In younger people this association is less evident, but it may anticipate a similar risk in adult life. Our research, based on the HBSC (Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children) International collaboration, contributes to deepen the knowledge in this field by monitoring adolescents' health through a multinational survey involving 29 European countries, plus North America (Canada and USA) and Israel. Methods: Following an established methodology, the HBSC survey has elaborated a questionnaire on health and health behaviour, filled in by a representative national sample of 11-, 13-and 15-year-old boys and girls. The sample is constituted of more than 160,000 subjects interviewed during the 2001/2002 survey. Reported symptoms and self-rated health have been analysed by sex and age and through the different countries. Results: Girls resulted to have a poorer perception of their health, with respect to males, at all ages and in all countries (Overall OR = 1.70, 95% CI: 1.66-1.76). Age increases this risk both for males and females, with an average increase of 32% (95% CI: 29-34%) per year in the age-range 11-15. The situation is similar for reported symptoms, with an overall OR of 1.81 (95% CI: 1.77-1.85) for females of reporting three or more symptoms at least once a week; also this risk increases of 26% (95% CI: 24-27%) per year during the pre-adolescence phase. In both cases it could be shown a significant interaction effect between age and gender: OR = 1.19 (CI: 1.15-1.23) for perceived health and OR = 1.26 (CI: 1.23-1.29) for reported symptoms in females with respect to males. Conclusions: Even if adolescence is described as the healthiest period of life, a consistent minority of young people perceive and report a poor health and a high number of symptoms. Females are constantly in a worse position than males and older age groups are worse than younger ones.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Girls growing through adolescence have a higher risk of poor health

et al. 2006

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“…a sample from Southern Hungary and a Hungarian ethnic minority sample from Central Transylvania, Rumania). This finding is in concordance with previous research results (BerntssOn & köhLer 2001;erGinOz et al 2004;GeckOva et al 2004;saLOnna et al 2008;tOrsheiM et al 2004). However, there are some important differences not only between the samples but also in the role that objective and subjective social class indicators play in understanding health outcomes.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 94%

“…Even in adolescence, when there is a certain level of equalisation, psychosocial variables may reflect SES inequalities or sometimes may generate SES differences in health. Among others, adolescents from lower SES groups usually report lower levels of self-perceived health (ErGinOz et al 2004;GeckOva et al 2004;TOrsheiM et al 2004), more psychosomatic health complaints (BerntssOn & köhLer 2001;Pikó & FitzPatrick 2001) or depressive symptomatology (Pikó & FitzPatrick 2007). A cross-national report of Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC) indicates consistent inequalities in self-reported health, psychosomatic symptoms, eating habits and physical activity at both the individual and country level (Currie et al 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Inequalities in Self-Perceived Health: Comparing Hungarian and Ethnic Minority Adolescents from Transylvania, Rumania

Pikó¹,

Brassai²,

Fitzpatrick³

2013

EJMH

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The aim of this study is to analyse the relationship between parental socioeconomic status (SES) (both objective and subjective) and perceived health in two samples of Eastern European adolescents and to detect gender differences in the background variables. The data used in this study came from two cross-sectional surveys of high school students' health in Southern Hungary (Szeged and its metropolitan area, N = 881, mean age = 16.6 years, S.D. = 1.3 years) and Middle Transylvania, Rumania (Sfântu Gheorghe/Sepsiszentgyörgy and its metropolitan area, N = 1,977, mean age = 16.8 years, S.D. = 1.0 years). Both objective and subjective social status measures were utilized. SES self-assessment is a strong, universal and gradient-like predictor of adolescents' self-perceived health. Objective socioeconomic variables are weaker and appear to have a nongradient-like relationship with self-perceived health. The greatest sample difference was that parents' unemployment status played a greater role in self-perceived health among Transylvanian youth. The role of socioeconomic factors appears to be more salient in girls. Social inequalities in self-perceived health may be detected among adolescents but in seemingly different ways than among adults.

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“…17 Suggested explanations for this trend include higher parental awareness and increases in both chronic disease and FSS among children in general. 18 Because patterns of health care use may be established early in life, [19][20][21][22][23][24] it is important to obtain knowledge on determinants of medical help-seeking behavior for FSS in childhood to prevent unnecessary hospitalization and treatment.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Functional Somatic Symptoms and Consultation Patterns in 5- to 7-Year-Olds

et al. 2013

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OBJECTIVE: To investigate the frequency of and factors linked to medical consultation for functional somatic symptoms (FSS) among 5- to 7-year-old children. METHODS: We assessed 1327 children from the Copenhagen Child Cohort 2000 for FSS at ages 5 to 7 years. Register data on past health care use in general practice were compared between children with and those without parent-reported medical consultation for FSS at the age of 5 to 7 years: respective consulters (n = 96) and nonconsulters (n = 211) and children without FSS (n = 1019). Degree of parental worries about the child’s symptoms and parent-reported symptom characteristics and associated impacts were compared between consulters and nonconsulters. RESULTS: Among 308 children with FSS, 31.1% were consulters. Being a consulter was significantly associated with multisymptomatic presentation, parental worries about the symptoms, symptom impact, and a higher past health care use in general practice. Multiple logistic regression analysis controlled for gender, comorbid physical disease, and symptom severity revealed that the number of face-to-face contacts in general practice during the child’s first 4 years of life predicted being an consulter for FSS at 5 to 7 years (odds ratio 1.03, 95% confidence interval 1.00–1.06; odds ratio interpreted per unit change in number of contacts). CONCLUSIONS: This study adds to our understanding of health care use for FSS in childhood by highlighting the influence of parents’ early consultation patterns with their child and the influence of parental perceptions of their child’s health and FSS-related impact on pediatric health care use for FSS. Management of health care use in children with FSS should address these aspects.

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Long-term illness and psychosomatic complaints in children aged 2-17 years in the five Nordic countries. Comparison between 1984 and 1996

Cited by 117 publications

References 8 publications

Girls growing through adolescence have a higher risk of poor health

Girls growing through adolescence have a higher risk of poor health

Social Inequalities in Self-Perceived Health: Comparing Hungarian and Ethnic Minority Adolescents from Transylvania, Rumania

Functional Somatic Symptoms and Consultation Patterns in 5- to 7-Year-Olds

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