Self Reported Chronic Pain In School Age Children

Over 11,000 questionnaires were sent to school aged children in Germany in order to try and quantify the extent of chronic pain in adolescents and better understand its epidemiology. The questionnaire was designed to provide information not just on the prevalence of pain but also specific characteristics, restrictions to daily living and use of health care due to the pain.


The response rate for completion of the questionnaires was over 80%, providing a total of 9148 usable questionnaires that were returned and could be included in the study. The results showed an incredible prevalence of chronic pain (defined as pain for longer than 3 months) at 44% of all responders. Headache was the most common source of pain (38%) closely followed by back pain (17%) and limb pain (15.7%). The effects on daily living tended to impact most significantly on ability to pursue hobbies (girls 60%, boys 57%); sleeping problems (girls 61%, boys 46%); eating problems (girls 48%, boys 30%) as well as numerous other normal adolescent activities.


Nearly a third of those experiencing pain said it occurred more than three times a week and 9% said it was an issue every day; 30% didn't use health care at all but almost the same number (28%) reported seeing a doctor and taking medication to help with the problem.


The study suggests that an extremely high number of children and adolescents are willing to report suffering from chronic pain, which certainly implies the need for further investigation into why this might be the case and how best it can be controlled. Interestingly, the questionnaire also revealed that in almost half of these cases, the children concerned lived with another family member who also suffered with chronic pain - which might raise further issues for clinicians treating chronic pain patients with children.


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