Besides many other mental and physical problems, bullying in school causes headaches. This is the conclusion of a group of psychologists at the University of Padua in Italy who published their findings in the last issue of the journal Headache. They looked at 20 published studies on bullying, which included 173,775 children, and found that 14 of these studies recorded the presence of headaches. While 19% of kids who were not bullied suffered from headaches, this number was 33% in those who were. There was no difference in the incidence of headaches between kids in Europe compared to other countries.
This study confirms what has been reported for health problems in bullied kids in general. It is well known that psychological stress causes physical symptoms. Social pain is a term that psychologists use to describe the effect of peer rejection, ostracism, or loss. Recent studies have shown that physical and social pain share many physiological mechanisms in the brain. The authors also speculate that lack of coping skills, low self-esteem or lack of assertiveness may lead to more psychological and physical problems. They also call on pediatricians, school nurses and others to become more aware of the physical symptoms, such as headache, as a manifestation of bullying.
I have seen a number of children with severe persistent headaches, which required home schooling. In some of these kids bullying was a definite contributing factor, although many children are reluctant to admit this even to their parents.
