The family's economic resources and adolescents' health complaints--do adolescents' own economic resources matter?

BACKGROUND

The present study focuses on the relevance of economic resources to psychological and psychosomatic health complaints during adolescence. It explores the link between the family's and the adolescent's economic resources and investigates whether or not differences in health complaints by the family's financial situation can be explained by adolescents' own economic resources.

METHODS

Drawing on data from two Swedish surveys on living conditions during adolescence (in the age group 10-18 years) conducted in 2002-03, logistic regressions were used to assess the associations between adolescents' own and household economic resources on two measures of health complaints.

RESULTS

The association between family economic hardship (i.e. lack of cash margin) and adolescents' health complaints largely disappeared when controlling for adolescents' own economic resources. Three measures of own absolute and relative economic resources were used. Out of these, the ability (or not) to buy things that others have was connected with both psychological [Odds ratio (OR) 2.16, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) 1.6-2.9] and psychosomatic complaints (OR 1.67, 95% CI 1.3-2.1), irrespective of age and gender. The importance of lacking a personal cash margin or not being able to join friends seemed to differ between age groups and genders.

CONCLUSIONS

The importance of different aspects of economic resources seems to vary across age groups and gender. However, not being able to buy things that others have was clearly associated with health complaints irrespective of age and gender. Family economic hardship was associated with adolescents' health complaints, and this association was largely explained by adolescents' own economic resources.