CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 93Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional DevelopmentPsychosomatic Disorders and Their TreatmentsPediatric Pain Management Techniques

Are adolescents with frequent pain symptoms more depressed?

Open access
Härmä, Ann-Mari, Kaltiala-Heino, Riittakerttu, Rimpelä, Matti, Rantanen, Päivi·2002·Scandinavian Journal of Primary Health Care
DOI 10.1080/pri.20.2.92.96
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To study predicting value of pain symptoms in detecting depression among adolescents. DESIGN: A population-based classroom survey of 14-16-year-old adolescents. SETTING: Secondary schools in two regions of Finland (Vaasa and Pirkanmaa). SUBJECTS: Every secondary school in these two regions was asked to participate in the study. The final sample comprised 17,643 adolescents in 8th and 9th grades (mean age 15.3 years). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The subjects were asked to rate the frequency of headache, stomach-ache, low back pain and neck or shoulder pain. Depression was measured using the Finnish modification of the short Beck Depression Inventory (R-BDI). Trait anxiety was questioned in an item formulated analogously to R-BDI questions. RESULTS: Prevalence of depression was higher among adolescents with recurrent pain symptoms. Each of the four measured pain symptoms predicted depression independently and accumulation of different pain symptoms increased the odd ratios for depression. Anxiety did not change the association between pain symptoms and depression. CONCLUSION: Recurrent pain symptoms are associated with depression among adolescents. Clinicians working with adolescents should be aware of this association and interview adolescents with recurrent pains for possible underlying depression.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1080/pri.20.2.92.96

Cites

18 of 18 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • FSS are often comorbid with anxiety and depression.

    “Often comorbid anxiety and depression exist [3–5].”

    From Feasibility of group-based acceptance and commitment therapy for adolescents (AHEAD) with multiple functional somatic syndromes: A pilot study (2020) · cites this paper as [5]

    The Abstract says recurrent abdominal pain and headache are often concurrent with emotional disorders and describes associations of somatic symptoms with depression or anxiety. The Discussion reports an association between recurrent pain and depression in adolescents, but the paper studies selected pain symptoms rather than FSS generally and does not establish that FSS are often comorbid with both anxiety and depression. (LLM, conf=0.82)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • Patients with comorbidity of anxiety and depression were included, which increases the generalisability as these are common in youth with FSS.

    “Patients with comorbidity of anxiety and depression were included, which increases the generalisability as these are common in youth with FSS [3–5].”

    From Feasibility of group-based acceptance and commitment therapy for adolescents (AHEAD) with multiple functional somatic syndromes: A pilot study (2020) · cites this paper as [5]

    The Discussion reports more depression among adolescents with recurrent pain and describes anxiety as a well-known comorbid disorder of depression. This supports an association between these symptoms, but the paper does not establish that co-occurring anxiety and depression are common specifically among youth with FSS. The citing authors’ decision to include such patients is their own study design, not a finding attributed to this source. (LLM, conf=0.82)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. Last CG. Somatic complaints in anxiety disordered chil- dren. J Anxiety Disord 1991;5:125-38.
  2. Kutcher SP, Marton P. Utility of the BDI with psychiatri- cally disturbed adolescent outpatients. Can J Psychiatry 1989;34:107-9.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Härmä, A.-M., Kaltiala-Heino, R., Rimpelä, M., & Rantanen, P.
Affiliations
Tampere University Hospital (FI)
Venue
Scandinavian Journal of Primary Health Care
Publisher
Informa UK Limited
Published
2002-01
Volume
20
Issue
2
Pages
92-96
ISSN
  • 0281-3432 (ISSN-L)
  • 1502-7724
DOI
10.1080/pri.20.2.92.96
OpenAlex
W1972223247
Cited by
93
References
18
Citations by year
2025: 3 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 2 · 2012: 3
FWCI
3.98
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Scandinavian Journal of Primary Health Care (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • STM:n Hallinnonalan avoin julkaisuarkisto (Julkari) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health › Pediatric Pain Management Techniques
Keywords
adolescent depression, headache, abdominal pain, low back pain, neck and shoulder pain, trait anxiety, depression screening, high school students
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Psychology, Adolescent, Depressive Disorder, Female, Finland, Humans, Male, Pain, Pain Measurement, Schools, Students, Prevalence, Odds Ratio

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review