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The pros and cons of social relations: An analysis of adolescents' health complaints

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  • Brolin Låftman, Sara
  • Östberg, Viveca

Abstract

This paper examines the association between social relations and psychological and psychosomatic health complaints, among adolescents in Sweden. We focused on relationships with parents, as well as relationships with peers in school and in leisure time. Both the structure and the content of relations were analysed. For the latter, we looked at supportive as well as strained relations. The data was the pooled child supplements of the Swedish welfare surveys conducted in 2000-2003. This constitutes a nationally representative, cross-sectional sample of 10-18-year-olds (n=5137), where information was collected from both adolescents and their parents. Results showed that young people's social relations with parents and peers clearly covaried with their health complaints. With regard to family relations and psychological complaints, the association was more pronounced for relational content than for relational structure. For instance, whether relations with parents were strained or not seemed more relevant than family structure and parental working hours. Moreover, strained relations were more strongly associated with health complaints, especially psychosomatic complaints, than were supportive relations. This applied to relationships with parents as well as with peers in school.

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  • Brolin Låftman, Sara & Östberg, Viveca, 2006. "The pros and cons of social relations: An analysis of adolescents' health complaints," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 611-623, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:63:y:2006:i:3:p:611-623
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    Cited by:

    1. Tomas Vaičiūnas & Kastytis Šmigelskas, 2019. "The Role of School-Related Well-Being for Adolescent Subjective Health Complaints," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(9), pages 1-13, May.
    2. Wiklund, Maria & Bengs, Carita & Malmgren-Olsson, Eva-Britt & Öhman, Ann, 2010. "Young women facing multiple and intersecting stressors of modernity, gender orders and youth," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(9), pages 1567-1575, November.
    3. Emma Fransson & Sara Brolin Låftman & Viveca Östberg & Anders Hjern & Malin Bergström, 2018. "The Living Conditions of Children with Shared Residence – the Swedish Example," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 11(3), pages 861-883, June.
    4. Per E Gustafsson & Urban Janlert & Töres Theorell & Hugo Westerlund & Anne Hammarström, 2012. "Do Peer Relations in Adolescence Influence Health in Adulthood? Peer Problems in the School Setting and the Metabolic Syndrome in Middle-Age," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(6), pages 1-10, June.
    5. Sara B. Låftman & Bitte Modin, 2017. "Peer Victimization among Classmates—Associations with Students’ Internalizing Problems, Self-Esteem, and Life Satisfaction," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-10, October.
    6. Tide Garnow & Eva-Lena Einberg & Anna-Karin Edberg & Pernilla Garmy, 2021. "Sadness and Other Health Complaints among Swedish Adolescents: A Cross-Sectional Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(8), pages 1-10, April.
    7. Viveca Östberg & Sara B. Låftman & Bitte Modin & Petra Lindfors, 2018. "Bullying as a Stressor in Mid-Adolescent Girls and Boys–Associations with Perceived Stress, Recurrent Pain, and Salivary Cortisol," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(2), pages 1-11, February.

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