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Gender differences in students’ health complaints: a survey in seven countries

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Abstract

Aims

This study sought to determine the relationship among gender, quality of life and subjective health complaints in university students from six European countries and Turkey.

Subjects and methods

In surveys conducted between 1998 and 2005, ten health complaints were measured in a sample of 5,317 university students by a symptom checklist with a self-administered questionnaire, which also contained questions on socio-demographic variables and a one-item quality of life measure.

Results

The gender-standardised prevalence was highest for nervousness and headache followed by back ache or neck/shoulder ache in most of the countries. Overall, students from Turkey and Spain reported the highest level of complaints and students from Denmark and Lithuania the lowest. Female students were significantly more likely to report health complaints. The gender difference was consistent across types of complaints and study sites, but varied in size. It was on average smallest in Turkey and strongest in the Slavic countries, Poland and Bulgaria. Among all health complaints, depressive moods had the strongest negative impact on quality of life.

Conclusion

Although the results cannot be generalized to the general populations of the respective countries, the different profiles of reported complaints and gender differences should give rise to special interventions in these populations of young adults.

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Acknowledgements

This study was partly funded by Syddansk Universitets Forskingsfond, Denmark, by research grant no. 87/98 from the Department of Health of Navarra Goverment, from Norbega SA, and from the city of Pamplona, Restauración Colectiva SA. In addition to the authors, the Cross National Students Health Study group includes: S. Meier, A. Kraemer (Germany), H. Ozcebe, D. Aslan (Turkey), J. Klumbiene, I. Miseviciene (Lithuania), S. Ilieva (Bulgaria), F. Guillen-Grima (Spain) and others.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors confirm that there are no relevant associations that might pose a conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Southern Denmark, Unit for Health Promotion Research, Esbjerg, Denmark

    Christiane Stock

  2. Department of Public Health Medicine, School of Public Health, University of Bielefeld, P.O. Box 100131, 33501, Bielefeld, Germany

    Rafael T. Mikolajczyk & Vihra Naydenova

  3. School of Public Health, Hacettepe University, Hacettepe Parki, Ankara, Turkey

    Nazmi Bilir

  4. Preventive Medicine Department, Institute for Biomedical Research, Kaunas University of Medicine, Kaunas, Lithuania

    Janina Petkeviciene

  5. Institute of Family Sciences, Catholic University of Lublin, Lublin, Poland

    Urszula Dudziak

  6. Department of Health Sciences, Public University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain

    Blanca Marin-Fernandez

  7. Faculty of Sport, Health & Social Care, University of Gloucestershire, Gloucester, UK

    Walid El Ansari

Authors
  1. Christiane Stock
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  2. Rafael T. Mikolajczyk
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  3. Nazmi Bilir
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  4. Janina Petkeviciene
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  5. Vihra Naydenova
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  6. Urszula Dudziak
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Correspondence to Rafael T. Mikolajczyk.

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Stock, C., Mikolajczyk, R.T., Bilir, N. et al. Gender differences in students’ health complaints: a survey in seven countries. J Public Health 16, 353–360 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-007-0173-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-007-0173-6

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