Time trends in psychosomatic symptoms among Hungarian youth using repeated cross sectional HBSC data from 2002 to 2022 2026 Kökönyei et al

[Andy]

Abstract​

Psychosomatic symptoms have become increasingly prevalent among adolescents; however, trends covering a longer period remain underexplored in Hungary. This study examines changes in psychosomatic symptoms among school-aged children using nationally representative data from the Hungarian Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) survey, collected in 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014, 2018, and 2022 (N = 37,930; Mage = 14.88 years, SDage = 2.36 years; boys = 49.3%). Descriptive statistics, logistic regression analyses, and ANCOVAs were conducted to assess trends from 2002 to 2022.

Girls and older adolescents reported more symptoms overall, with 2022 showing the highest prevalence across all symptom categories in both genders. The proportion of adolescents reporting multiple health complaints (MHC) (excluding fatigue) became considerably more common between 2010 and 2022, increasing from 40.6 to 65.6% among girls, and from 30.2 to 42% among boys. Fatigue emerged as the most reported frequent symptom across all survey waves among both genders, peaking in 2022 at 47.5% among boys and 67.6% among girls. The findings point to a trajectory—particularly in recent years—highlighting the urgent need for targeted interventions and policy actions to support adolescent health.

Open access

 

[Utsikt]

It seems like there might have been a deviation for the trends between 2018 and 2022.

That would be as expected with both the strain of living in a pandemic and more importantly widespread and frequent covid infections:


The authors appear to be focusing on the psychosomatic angle.

 

[rvallee]

Psychosomatic symptoms have become increasingly prevalent among adolescents

[Citation needed]

Literally not possible to determine that symptoms are psychosomatic, so might as well say that "Thetans have become increasingly prevalent among adolescents", which is the same thing but with a story about alien galactic overlords, ghosts, big explodey war and stuff.

Oh, boy. What do they mean by psychosomatic symptoms? Symptoms.

Subjective health complaints, also referred to as psychosomatic symptoms, are frequently discussed in scientific literature3,4. Psychosomatic symptoms refer to subjective physical complaints—such as headaches or back pain—as well as psychological complaints, including feelings of low mood or irritability5. It is important to note that the terms “psychological” and “somatic” cannot be interpreted as the causes of the symptoms6. Therefore, subjective health complaints are suggested as a neutral descriptive term that highlights the personal experience of how these symptoms affect an individual’s life. In this paper, we will prefer to use the term psychosomatic symptoms.

At this point, comic books have more stringent requirements for story and character cohesion than whatever the hell this is.