Symptom clusters among young adolescents

This study examines recurrent psychosomatic symptoms and symptom clusters among 5th and 6th grade Israeli school children. A questionnaire which asked about the frequency of eight psychosomatic and eight organic complaints was administered to 259 students. The most frequently reported psychosomatic complaints were abdominal pain, experienced often by 21%, and headache, experienced often by 20% of the pupils. There were statistically significant differences between the sexes, girls having a higher prevalence than boys for eight of the symptoms, and with more girls than boys reporting more than one symptom in each category: 23% of the students had more than one psychosomatic symptom and 16% had more than one organic symptom. Multiple psychosomatic complaints were common, with 28% of those with back or limb pain and 27% of those suffering from "bad mood" reporting an additional three to five complaints. Abdominal pain and headache were each reported as an accompanying complaint in more than 40% of cases for almost every other psychosomatic complaint. The significance of these symptom clusters needs to be explored further as they may have important implications as markers for psychosocial stress.