Arthralgia in children: the epidemiological study

Methods Four towns and two rural districts of the Republic of Bashkortostan (Russia) were chosen for the questionnaire. The total number of the childhood population was 50442 children under 17 years of age. Totally 43907 children or their parents were examined with the help of the screening questionnaire. The parents were questioned by medical nurses during consulting reception hours, or in kindergartens, or at school. The children aged between 11 and 17 years answered the question list on their own. The screening questionnaire included two questions: 1. Did you observe any pain in joints of your child? 2. Did you observe any swelling in joints of your child? Four variants of the answer were offered: A – never happened, B – happened, but does not disturb for the last year, C – happened before and disturbs for the last year, D – happened for the last year.