Children who often get headaches are more likely to grow up to suffer other physical and psychiatric problems, a new study suggests.

Researchers from the Institute of Psychiatry and Guy's, King's and St Thomas's School of Medicine in London looked at data from more than 11,000 people, who were surveyed at ages 7, 11, 16, 23 and 33 as part of a national child development study.

They found that children with frequent headaches were more likely to experience "psychosocial adversity and to grow up with an excess of both headache and other physical and psychiatric symptoms", especially if they were women and working class.

The findings published in this week's British Medical Journal confirm previous held beliefs that children with headaches do not simply "grow out" of them and may go on to develop other problems.