Abstract
PurposeExamine time trends in health complaints among adolescents in Norway between 1994 and 2014 and among population subgroups, e.g., age and gender, as well as their interactions.MethodsNorwegian data on 11-16-year-olds were drawn from the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children survey (HBSC) and analyzed for 1994 (n = 4,952), 1998 (n = 5,026), 2002 (n = 5,023), 2006 (n = 4,711), 2010 (n = 4,342) and 2014 (n = 3,422). Design adjusted linear regression that accounts for clustering effects was used to examine mean scores of two subscales of the HBSC-symptom checklist: psychological and somatic health complaints.ResultsPsychological and somatic health complaints among adolescents in Norway followed somewhat different trajectories, but the mean scores of both types of health complaints appeared to increase during the 20-year period. For psychological health complaints, there was a three-way interaction between age, gender and time, indicating that increasing trends in health complaints depended on both age and gender, in which older adolescent girls had a greater increase over time relative to younger adolescents and boys.ConclusionsFindings from this study, together with earlier findings, suggest that there has been an increasing trend in health complaints among adolescents in Norway from 1994 to 2014, especially among older adolescent girls. Future research should examine if trends in health complaints also depend on gender and age in other contexts. This will help the planning and implementation of tailored and effective interventions.
Highlights
At present, there are increasing concerns about reports of deteriorating mental health in nonclinical youth populations from high-income countries between the 1950s and 2016 [1,2,3,4]
Psychological and somatic health complaints among adolescents in Norway followed somewhat different trajectories, but the mean scores of both types of health complaints appeared to increase during the 20-year period
There was a three-way interaction between age, gender and time, indicating that increasing trends in health complaints depended on both age and gender, in which older adolescent girls had a greater increase over time relative to younger adolescents and boys
Summary
There are increasing concerns about reports of deteriorating mental health in nonclinical youth populations from high-income countries between the 1950s and 2016 [1,2,3,4]. Health complaints consist of the subjective experience of psychological (mental health complaints) and somatic (recurring pains and aches) symptoms, without any presumption of underlying mental illness [5, 6], even though recurring health complaints are recognized as important indicators of mental health in adolescence [7]. A decline in health complaints has been observed in North America, for example the United States, where a sharp 9% decrease (from 45.7% to 39.6%) between 1998 and 2010 was observed [8] This might suggest that even though the rates of recurring health complaints are generally lower in the Nordic countries compared to other regions, the Nordic countries may be converging toward regions that are known to have higher rates of health complaints among adolescents, the cause of which is currently unknown
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