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Aim: The aim of this study was to assess whether sociodemographic household characteristics were associated with which Swedish adolescents were more likely to be bullied., Methods: The data were derived from the Swedish Living Conditions Survey and its child supplements from the survey years 2008-2011. The analyses included information on 3951 adolescents aged 10-18 years. Exposure to bullying was reported by adolescents, and information on sociodemographic household characteristics was reported by parents and obtained from official registers. Binary logistic regression was used to analyse the data., Results: Adolescents were more likely to be bullied if they lived in households with no cash margin, defined as the ability to pay an unexpected bill of 8000 Swedish Kronor or about 800 Euros, and if they lived with just one custodial parent. In the unadjusted analyses, elevated risks were identified if adolescents lived in working class households and had unemployed and foreign-born parents. However, these associations were at least partly accounted for by other sociodemographic household characteristics, in particular the lack of a cash margin., Conclusion: This study showed that Swedish adolescents living in households with more limited financial resources had an increased risk of being bullied, supporting results from previous international research., (©2017 The Authors. Acta Paediatrica published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Foundation Acta Paediatrica.)

Background: The present study focuses on the relevance of economic resources to psychological and psychosomatic health complaints during adolescence. It explores the link between the family's and the adolescent's economic resources and investigates whether or not differences in health complaints by the family's financial situation can be explained by adolescents' own economic resources., Methods: Drawing on data from two Swedish surveys on living conditions during adolescence (in the age group 10-18 years) conducted in 2002-03, logistic regressions were used to assess the associations between adolescents' own and household economic resources on two measures of health complaints., Results: The association between family economic hardship (i.e. lack of cash margin) and adolescents' health complaints largely disappeared when controlling for adolescents' own economic resources. Three measures of own absolute and relative economic resources were used. Out of these, the ability (or not) to buy things that others have was connected with both psychological [Odds ratio (OR) 2.16, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) 1.6-2.9] and psychosomatic complaints (OR 1.67, 95% CI 1.3-2.1), irrespective of age and gender. The importance of lacking a personal cash margin or not being able to join friends seemed to differ between age groups and genders., Conclusions: The importance of different aspects of economic resources seems to vary across age groups and gender. However, not being able to buy things that others have was clearly associated with health complaints irrespective of age and gender. Family economic hardship was associated with adolescents' health complaints, and this association was largely explained by adolescents' own economic resources.