Neck pain in adolescence. A 4-year follow-up of pain-free preadolescents

Abstract

The main aim of this study was to explore the occurrence and changes of neck pain in pain-free preadolescents. The evaluation was performed at 1- and 4-year follow-ups. Of the pain-free preadolescents, 366 (71.9%) completed structured pain questionnaires at 1 and 4 years. The occurrence of neck pain at least once a month was 21.3 and 43.4% and at least once a week was 6.3 and 19.4%. Sex difference was found only at the 4-year follow-up, when subjects were 13-16-year-old. Neck pain was then more common among girls than boys (P < 0.001). The intensity of pain increased with the frequency of pain (P < 0.001). Of those with neck pain, 28% had used painkillers. The proportion increased with the frequency of neck pain (P = 0.054). Neck pain occurred more often with some other musculoskeletal pain than as a single pain. The frequency of neck pain correlated with the frequency of headache (r = 0.39 [95% confidence interval (CI), 0.30-0.47]) and with the disability (r = 0.26 [95% CI, 0.16-0.35]). This study strengthens the results of the previous cross-sectional studies that occurrence of neck pain increases with age, and that neck pain becomes more common among girls than boys in adolescence. Among preadolescents who were originally pain-free, there was only a small proportion who reported frequent neck pain at both 1 and 4 years. It also showed that the frequency of neck pain reflects the intensity of pain fairly well.

Classification system of the sagittal standing alignment in young adolescent girls

“…Absence of such associations might be due to the possibility for gender-and/or age-dependent differences in the presence and dominance of posture as a contributing factor within the widely accepted multifactorial nature of spinal pain. Factors that come into play might include biological, mechanical, psychological, cognitive and social factors [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. Alternatively, the association between postural types and spinal pain in pre-PHV boys yet not in girls might suggest that habitual stance in these populations involves different biomechanical loading patterns (see below).…”

One-year Incidence and Risk Factors of Thoracic Spine Pain in Undergraduate Students

“…The similarity of risk factors causing the onset of symptoms and their persistence has been reported in other studies 17,18) . Ståhl et al 45) found that frequent musculoskeletal pain or physical and psychological symptoms, such as headache, depressive mood and sleep difficulties, were risk factors of the occurrence and persistence of weekly neck pain during a 4 year follow up. Our results suggest that female gender plays a dominant role in relation to thoracic spine pain in undergraduate students.…”

WAD – Criteria for Evaluation of Causality

“…Nine of these were rated as scientifi cally admissible for inclusion in a best evidence synthesis, regarding incidence rates for neck pain in the general population [40,[49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56]. According to these, the one year incidence for activity-limiting neck pain ranged from 1.7 % to 11,5 %.…”