Quality of life in adolescents with chronic pain in the head or at other locations

The differences in quality of life and school absence were studied in one h undred adolescents from the open population who had reported chronic headac he or chronic, physically unexplained, pain at other locations. The adolescents kept a 3-week diary about their pain and completed a qualit y of life questionnaire. Of all chronic pain sufferers in this study, it wa s the adolescents with headache who showed the least frequent pain, but the y reported the poorest quality of life and the largest school absence due t o their pain. Adolescents with headache or adolescents with back pain showed the highest negative correlations between pain parameters and quality of life. Headache sufferers showed highly negative relationships between pain parameters and most quality of life domains (median 1 =-0.46), and only in headache suffe rers did this involve both intensity and frequency of pain. Qualitative studies are needed to reveal the background to these difference s.