Assessment of health risk behaviours and their int

Authors: Lucia Maria Lotrean Valeria Laza Carmen Ionut Hein de Vries

Publish Date: 2010/02/24

Volume: 18, Issue: 4, Pages: 403-411

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Abstract

The first goal of this study was to assess the prevalence of different health risk behaviours among Romanian young people Next the interrelationship between different health risk behaviours as well as age and gender differences with respect to health risk behaviours were examinedThe results showed that 31 of junior high school students 597 of senior high school students and 648 of university students reported more than one risk behaviour Many of the risk behaviours were likely to correlate with each other and the strongest correlation was found between smoking alcoholrelated behaviour and precocious sexual intercourse Factor analysis revealed that among junior high school students all health risk behaviours loaded on one factor In senior high school students and university students the risk behaviours split into two factors based probably on their frequency and severity Factor 1 comprised smoking alcoholrelated behaviours as well as precocious sexual intercourse while factor 2 included less common behaviours violence delinquency and illicit drug use No gender differences were observed regarding the relationship between health risk behavioursThe results stress the importance of developing prevention programmes among Romanian youth for the behaviours discussed Further research is needed to identify how to best offer these programmes as standalone programmes or as an integrated set of programmes and whether the same approach has to be taken for younger and older adolescentsThe leading causes of mortality and morbidity among young people can be traced to several preventable health risk behaviours that are often initiated during youth and may extend into adulthood Brenner and Collins 1998 Kolip and Schmidt 1999 Lippe et al 2008 Hibell et al 2004 Many of these risk behaviours also contribute substantially to social problems such as family dysfunction crime and school dropout Grunbaum et al 2004 Adolescence is a time of risk taking and experimentation and many studies have found a cooccurrence of several health risk behaviours among young people from different countries BasenEngquist et al 1996 Brener and Collins 1998 Bartlett et al 2005 Mpofu et al 2006 Several researchers also underlined that an early age at onset of health risk behaviours is associated with an increased likelihood that adolescents will engage in multiple risk behaviours as they progress through adolescence Donovan and Jessor 1985 Jessor 1991 Brener and Collins 1998 Durant et al 1999 Aarons et al 1999 Paavola et al 2004 Moreover different studies showed that the relationship between several health risk behaviours varied across age groups Kulbok and Cox 2002 GuilamoRamos et al 2005Few studies described the distribution of health risk behaviours among Romanian young people generally they restricted their investigations to a narrow range of problem behaviours such as substance use Romanian Ministry of Health 2004 Abraham 2004 National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion 2004 or sexual behaviour Lotrean and Laza 2001 Romanian Ministry of Health 2005 or included only younger adolescents up to 15 years of age Currie et al 2008 The results of the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs carried out in Romania in 2003 showed that 64 of participating 16yearold school students reported smoking at least once during their lifetime an increase of 11 was noticed compared with the year 1999 The same study shows that 52 of 16yearold school students have experimented with alcohol and experienced intoxication and 3 have used cannabis at least once during their lifetime when comparing with 1999 the prevalence of acute alcohol intoxication increased by 20 while the prevalence of cannabis use doubled Romanian Ministry of Health 2004Moreover as far as we know to date no study has focused on the correlation between different health risk behaviours among Romanian adolescents Through a greater understanding of the linkages between health risk behaviours among different groups of young people we may increase our knowledge of how to develop integrative approaches leading to the adoption of a healthy lifestyleHence our study has three goals The first goal is to assess the prevalence of a wide range of health risk behaviours among Romanian young people starting with substance use and continuing with sexual behaviour as well as violence and delinquencyrelated behaviours The second goal concerns the description of crosssectional interrelationships between different health risk behaviours The third goal entails the analysis of age and gender differences with respect to health risk behaviours

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