School Satisfaction and Its Associations with Health and Behavioural Outcomes among 15-Years Old Adolescents

Background: Health and behavioural outcomes of adolescents have been shown to be related to school pressure, demands or unfavourable relationships with classmates or teachers. These associations may relate to school satisfaction, but evidence on this is lacking. Therefore, our aim is to explore the associations of school satisfaction with hopelessness, health complaints, fighting and truancy.Methods: Data come from the cross-sectional Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study collected in 2018 from Slovak 15-year-old adolescents (N = 816; 50.9% boys). School satisfaction was measured by school engagement and attitudes towards education, grouped as: satisfied (both positive), inconsistent (one positive, one negative) and indifferent (both negative). Hopelessness, health complaints, fighting and truancy were measured using self-report questionnaires. Logistic regression models were used to explore the associations of school satisfaction with hopelessness, health complaints, fighting and truancy separately.Results: Indifferent adolescents were more likely to feel hopeless, to frequently experience two or more health complaints, to be involved in a fight and to skip school (odds ratios/95%-confidence interval: 2.57/1.49–4.45; 2.51/1.48–4.25; 1.92/1.02–3.60; and 2.34/1.25–4.40, respectively) than satisfied adolescents. Inconsistent adolescents were more likely to frequently experience two or more health complaints than satisfied adolescents (1.72/1.05–5.79).Conclusions: School satisfaction affects adolescents’ health and social behaviour and may threaten their healthy development.</p

School Satisfaction and Its Associations with Health and Behavioural Outcomes among 15-Years Old Adolescents

Background: Health and behavioural outcomes of adolescents have been shown to be related to school pressure, demands or unfavourable relationships with classmates or teachers. These associations may relate to school satisfaction, but evidence on this is lacking. Therefore, our aim is to explore the associations of school satisfaction with hopelessness, health complaints, fighting and truancy. Methods: Data come from the cross-sectional Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study collected in 2018 from Slovak 15-year-old adolescents (N = 816; 50.9% boys). School satisfaction was measured by school engagement and attitudes towards education, grouped as: satisfied (both positive), inconsistent (one positive, one negative) and indifferent (both negative). Hopelessness, health complaints, fighting and truancy were measured using self-report questionnaires. Logistic regression models were used to explore the associations of school satisfaction with hopelessness, health complaints, fighting and truancy separately. Results: Indifferent adolescents were more likely to feel hopeless, to frequently experience two or more health complaints, to be involved in a fight and to skip school (odds ratios/95%-confidence interval: 2.57/1.49&ndash;4.45; 2.51/1.48&ndash;4.25; 1.92/1.02&ndash;3.60; and 2.34/1.25&ndash;4.40, respectively) than satisfied adolescents. Inconsistent adolescents were more likely to frequently experience two or more health complaints than satisfied adolescents (1.72/1.05&ndash;5.79). Conclusions: School satisfaction affects adolescents&rsquo; health and social behaviour and may threaten their healthy development

How to make healthy early childhood development more likely in marginalized Roma communities:a concept mapping approach

BACKGROUND: This study aims to assess which measures could improve the healthy early childhood development of children from marginalized Roma communities and to identify priority measures. METHODS: Concept mapping approach was used, using mixed methods. In total 54 professionals, including social workers, educators, health care providers, municipality representatives, and project managers participated in our study. RESULTS: Four distinct clusters of measures targeting living conditions, public resources, healthcare and community interventions, and 27 individual priority measures of highest urgency and feasibility were identified. The cluster ‘Targeting living conditions’, was rated as the most urgent but least feasible, whereas the cluster ‘Targeting health care’, was considered least urgent but most feasible. Among the 27 priority measures, ‘Planning parenthood’ and ‘Scaling up existing projects’ had the highest priority. CONCLUSION: Our results reflect the public and political discourse and indicate significant barriers to implementation. Reducing inequalities in early childhood needs to be addressed through coordinated efforts

Socioeconomic differences in adolescents’ smoking: a comparison between Finland and Beijing, China

Background: Various studies have demonstrated the associations between socioeconomic status (SES) and health and health behaviour among adolescents. However, few studies have compared the socioeconomic difference in adolescent smoking between countries with different stage of smoking. The purpose of this study was to examine and compare the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and adolescent smoking in Beijing, China and Finland through the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study. Methods: The data used in this study were derived from the Chinese HBSC linked project survey 2008 in Beijing and the Finnish HBSC survey 2006. The final sample included 2005 Chinese and 1685 Finnish 15-year-old schoolchildren. The associations between Family Affluence Scale (FAS), as the SES measure, and adolescents’ smoking behaviour, including ever smoked, weekly smoking and the early onset of smoking were examined separately in two countries through binary logistic regression. Results: Compared to students from the high FAS group, Chinese boys from the low FAS group were more likely to report having ever smoked (OR = 2.12, 95 % CI = 1.49–3.01) and being early onset of smoking (OR = 2.17, 95 % CI = 1. 44–3.26). Finnish girls from the low FAS group were more likely to report being weekly smokers (OR = 1.68, 95 % CI = 1. 07–2.65). No significant difference was found for Chinese girls and Finnish boys. Conclusions: This study indicated different patterns of socioeconomic difference in smoking between Chinese and Finnish adolescents by gender and by smoking behaviour, which suggests that socioeconomic inequalities in smoking are different among adolescents in countries with different stage of smoking. Country specific policies and interventions for different target groups should be encouraged and designed for reducing the prevalence of adolescents’ smoking.peerReviewe

The association between active participation in a sports club, physical activity and social network on the development of lung cancer in smokers: a case-control study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>This study analyses the effect of active participation in a sports club, physical activity and social networks on the development of lung cancer in patients who smoke. Our hypothesis is that study participants who lack social networks and do not actively participate in a sports club are at a greater risk for lung cancer than those who do.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Data for the study were taken from the <b>Co</b>logne <b>Smo</b>king <b>S</b>tudy (<b>CoSmoS</b>), a retrospective case-control study examining potential psychosocial risk factors for the development of lung cancer. Our sample consisted of n = 158 participants who had suffered lung cancer (diagnosis in the patient document) and n = 144 control group participants. Both groups had a history of smoking.</p> <p>Data on social networks were collected by asking participants whether they participated in a sports club and about the number of friends and relatives in their social environment. In addition, sociodemographic data (gender, age, education, marital status, residence and religion), physical activity and data on pack years (the cumulative number of cigarettes smoked by an individual, calculated by multiplying the number of cigarettes smoked per day by the number of years the person has smoked divided by 20) were collected to control for potential confounders. Logistic regression was used for the statistical analysis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The results reveal that participants who are physically active are at a lower risk of lung cancer than those who are not (adjusted OR = 0.53*; CI = 0.29-0.97). Older age and lower education seem also to be risk factors for the development of lung cancer. The extent of smoking, furthermore, measured by pack years is statistically significant. Active participation in a sports club, number of friends and relatives had no statistically significant influence on the development of the cancer.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The results of the study suggest that there is a lower risk for physically active participants to develop lung cancer. In the study sample, physical activity seemed to have a greater protective effect than participation in a sports club or social network of friends and relatives. Further studies have to investigate in more detail physical activity and other club participations.</p