Anxiety and psychosocial stress as predictors of headache and abdominal pain in urban early adolescents.

OBJECTIVE

To examine the relations among anxiety, psychosocial stress, and headache and abdominal pain complaints within the context of the Biobehavioral Model of Pediatric Pain.

METHODS

Adolescents from urban schools serving a predominantly African-American population completed measures of pain, anxiety, witnessing violence, problem situations, and victimization at the end of the seventh grade (N = 502) and 6 months later (longitudinal N = 289).

RESULTS

A high prevalence of weekly headaches (40%) and abdominal pain (36%) was reported. Anxiety partially mediated relations between psychosocial stress and pain at Time 1, particularly for problem situations. Longitudinal models showed that adolescents reporting higher levels of pain at Time 1 reported greater increases in victimization and anxiety at Time 2. Changes in pain were positively correlated with changes in anxiety and stress variables.

CONCLUSIONS

Implications for understanding the causes and correlates of headache and abdominal pain in normal children are discussed.