Fig. 2

Common characteristics of a GP care-seeking 8–19-year old with musculoskeletal pain. A short story about a young girl with pain. A typical Danish child or adolescent with musculoskeletal pain is a 12 or 13 year-old girl. She has pain in her knee and in at least one more body part. She visits her general practitioner because she cannot use her body as usual due to pain and she decides to do so after having had pain for one year with pain episodes occurring as frequently as once every week. In her household she is the youngest of two children. In school her concentration is affected by her pain, and she goes on with her day feeling tired, but after school she is active in sports 2–3 times a week, even though her pain disturbs her spare time activities. During a typical day, she spends 3–6 h looking at a screen. She believes in God. When her day is over, and it is time for her to turn in she goes to bed knowing what causes her pain. Data is based on all participants, n = 100 including both activity limiting and non-activity limiting pain. Cut off limit is defined at a minimum of 31% of all participants for inclusion of the characteristics included in this figure