Children's sense of coherence and trait emotional intelligence: a longitudinal study exploring the development of somatic complaints.

The objective of this study was to investigate the prospective relationships between sense of coherence, trait emotional intelligence and children's somatic complaints. The study included four waves of data collection with six months in between each wave. Participants were 324 girls and 393 boys (mean age = 10 years and 3 months, SD = 8.5 months) at the first time of data collection. The children filled out self-report questionnaires concerning their somatic complaints, sense of coherence and trait emotional intelligence. Multilevel model analyses were carried out that included cross-sectional and longitudinal effects of sense of coherence and trait emotional intelligence on children's somatic complaints. The results showed that higher levels of trait emotional intelligence and a stronger sense of coherence were associated with fewer somatic complaints in children. These relationships seemed to be bidirectional.