Bodily complaints are widespread among the elderly; few surveys investigating bodily complaints among elder migrants exist in Germany and internationally. Our multi-centric cross section study examined bodily complaints among persons between 60 and 84 years dwelling in Stuttgart on the basis of the short version of the Giessen Complaint Questionnaire (GBB-24). In Germany 648 were explored with 13.4% (n = 87) born outside of Germany. Gender distribution was equal among migrants and non-migrants; socioeconomic status was lower among the migrants: 8.0% (n = 7) of the migrants and 2.5% (n = 14) of the non-migrants had at most four years of education; 12.6% (n = 11) of the migrants and 8.2% (n = 46) of the non-migrants held a net income of below 1000€; 26.4% of the migrants and 38.1% (n = 214) of the non-migrants disposed over 2000 € monthly. The incidence of somatic complaints was 65.5% (n = 57) among the migrants and 55.8% (n = 313) among the non-migrants. Women (61.8%) displayed more often somatic complaints than men (51.8%). Somatic complaints increased with age. Except of the group aged between 70-74 years no significant difference between migrants and non-migrants could be shown concerning the incidence of bodily complaints. Outlook: population based studies on bodily complaints among migrants are urgently needed. © 2010 by Verlag Hans Huber, Hogrefe AG.

Migrants Elderly Somatic complaints Population based study Age

male controlled study sex difference female major clinical study Germany Aged socioeconomics psychosomatic disorder questionnaire Cost benefit analysis patient education Article sex ratio human adult elderly care migration