Psychosomatic problems and countermeasures in Japanese children and adolescents

From the 1990s to the new millennium Japan has been witnessing a considerable rise in the number of children presenting psychosomatic disorders [1]. The main symptoms in these children include headache, abdominal pain, poor early rising, nausea, fatigue, etc., and children having two or more symptoms were reported to range about 20-30% [2]. Pupils who come to school infirmaries with physical symptoms related to emotional stress has increased to more than 15% per a week [3,4]. On October 19, 1999, the research team of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare performed the national survey and indicated that 8.47% children aged 10-15 years old were diagnosed with psychosomatic diseases in patients. Among these, orthostatic dysregulation (OD), the major psychosomatic disease in Japanese children, amounted up to 71%. Severe OD is considered to be strongly associated with school stress and nearly half of them develop school absenteeism. Chronic headache is also a typical psychosomatic disease, strongly associated with school absenteeism. In consistent with these, the number of school absentee amounted to 114 971 (0.31% for elementary school, 2.62% for junior high school, total 1.14%) in 2010.There are several reports on a survey of physical and mental health in children and adolescents in other countries [5,6], These studies described prevalence data of physical symptoms such as headache [7,8], or abdominal pain [9], but methods employed in these studies are different, and difficult for international comparison. Moreover, these did not include the viewpoint of psychosomatic and psychosocial survey [10].In an effort to uncover the susceptibility and the causes of physical symptoms, psychiatric complaints and behavioral problems related to school children in Japan, we felt it would be beneficial and necessary to make a comparison on an international level using the same instrument. It was within practical reach for us to compare Japanese children with Swedish children; hen