Washington: In four out of ten cases, women who suffer from long-term have some form of physical complaint, a new study has suggested.
Within the Population Study of Women in Gothenburg, researchers at the University of Gothenburg`s Sahlgrenska Academy have followed around 1,500 women since the late 1960s.
The latest study within the project, which focuses primarily on stress linked to psychosomatic symptoms, showed that one in five middle-aged women had experienced constant or frequent stress during the last five years.
The experience of stress was highest within the 40 to 60 age range, and those women who were stressed were more often single and/or smokers.
Among those women who reported stress, 40 percent had psychosomatic symptoms in the form of aches and pain in their muscles and joints, 28 percent suffered from headaches or migraines, and the same proportion reported gastrointestinal complaints.
Of those women who experienced long-term stress but who did not report any stress-related problems when the study began in 1968-69, 27 percent had new symptoms in the form of muscular and joint pain when they were followed up 12 years later, and around 15 percent experienced new complaints in the form of headaches and/or gastrointestinal problems.
Dominique Hange, researcher at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, said since 1968, women`s lifestyles have changed in many ways.
He said that many more women now work outside the home. Naturally, these changes can affect the experience of stress. But although we`ve used exactly the same question ever since 1968, we can`t take it for granted that the term `stress` has exactly the same meaning today.
Hange added that it might also be more socially accepted today to acknowledge one`s experience of stress.
ANI
