Behavioural/emotional symptoms among 8-9-year-old children with somatic symptoms or illnesses as reported by their teacher.

The aim of this study was to assess children's behavioural/emotional symptoms at school and to compare these symptoms of somatically healthy children with those of children with somatic illnesses or symptoms. The Rutter Teacher Questionnaire (RB2) was used for measuring psychiatric symptoms in 5813 children aged 8-9 years. The parents reported the somatic symptoms and illnesses of their children during the previous 12 months. One hundred and sixty one children had a marked or serious chronic illness, 292 had a mild chronic illness, and 92 had one or several symptoms. The findings suggest that boys with a marked or serious chronic somatic illness are prone to manifest psychiatric symptoms in their interactions with peers and teachers at school and that boys with a mild chronic illness have less psychiatric symptoms than healthy boys.