School as a Risk Factor

Abstract

Specialists in pediatric and adolescent medicine have for many years reported symptoms of psychological stress in a high proportion of school children. Headache is certainly an important indicator in this setting. The entire area of school as an important risk factor has, however, been neglected in the article by Gasmann et al. It is well known that all demands made on a child within the family, during leisure activities, and especially in school constitute specific stimuli for a child’s bodies. These stimuli are an active form of adjustment on the child’s part to environmental influences, especially demands imposed by lessons/school subjects and by the material-hygienic conditions at school. Headache can be an indicator of stress experienced by a child as a result of school. It has been shown that students in the lower forms (1st to 4th year), who receive lessons primarily over the lunch period, have reported headaches far more often and showed unfavorable physiological test results far more often than children whose schooling fell into the morning hours (1). For this reason, the omission of school—which takes up a vast amount of important time in children’s everyday lives—from a research project involving children, adolescents, and headache, is a clear shortcoming of this article.