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[Risk factors for the health of adolescent students]
J A Aguado Mingorance1, I Aguilar Domínguez, J Maeso Villafaña
1Distrito Sanitario de la Alpujarra, Granada.
Objective:
To profile COU and 5th-year FP students for the theoretical importance they give to health and their self-perception of the same. To measure their level of knowledge, activities and conduct regarding health risk factors.
Design:
Descriptive crossover study.
Setting:
Primary Care district of the Alpujarra, Granada.
Participants:
190 COU and 5th-year FP students from schools in the Alpujarra (95% of the total).
Measurements And Main Results:
The majority of these young people cites health as among the three most important elements in their life, yet lived alongside important risk factors. Although 69% defined their health as good or very good, 64% got drunk at least once a year. Although they all accepted the harmfulness of tobacco, 54.1% (with no difference between the sexes) smoked to some degree. Only 2.6% identified the days of greatest risk of pregnancy in a supposed cycle, although 19% stated that they had heterosexual relations. AIDS was considered the illness most to be feared. 13% had had a motor-bike accident in recent years.
Conclusions:
There is a contradiction between the high theoretical importance given to health, the self-definition of good health and cohabitation with important risk factors. The inefficacy of the Primary Care and Education systems in the primary prevention of important risk factors affecting adolescents' health was also demonstrated.