Headache, stomach or back: frequent disorders in adolescents

American adolescent girls are frequently affected by headache, back pain, stomach pain or morning fatigue, highlight the findings of a national survey published in the journal "Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine."
Various studies have found that children and adolescents often complain of these symptoms, especially girls, who are more likely to exhibit several of these disorders at the same time remind the members of the team led by Reem Ghandour , division "Women's Health" Health of resources and services administration (HERSA, the agency responsible for the overall administration of the Department of Public Health U.S. Department of Health).

To the extent that the fact of suffering from chronic pain in adolescence has consequences not only in the short term (truancy, relationship problems ...), but also long-term (increased risk of being subject to chronic pain in adulthood, in particular), American authors wanted to determine the frequency of these disorders, as well as the potential impact of certain risk factors and preventive measures.

For this, a sample of 8,250 girls enrolled in classes covering the age range 11-15 years (representing a population of more than 10,350,000 adolescents at national level) were asked in a survey between 1997 and 1998.

The analysis of data was used to estimate the proportion to 29.1% of young Americans suffer from headaches more than once a week, while 20.7% of participants reported being affected by upsets stomach, back pain 23.6% and 30.6% with morning fatigue at a comparable rate.

It is also clear that these disorders often occurred in tandem. Indeed, among the girls who have more than one crisis weekly headache, more than half (53.3%) also reported having stomach at the same frequency and nearly three-quarters pain (74.3% ) reported waking up more tired than once a week.

Somatic complaints of headache, stomach, back or morning show fatigue common among U.S. adolescents, the authors note that say that if in some cases, pain may be related to the menstrual cycle, most of them appear to be strongly associated with social risk factors, environmental and behavioral.

Indeed, it seems that the support of parents and teachers prevents the occurrence of such disorders, while smoking and heavy alcohol or caffeine would be contributing factors.