• Child Health Nursing Research
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.341-350
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• 2006

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to describe high-risk health behaviors in middle school adolescents and to identify factors related to this behavior. Method: This survey study employed a self administered questionnaire given to 621 students enrolled in one middle school located in Gyeonggi province. Using the cluster sampling method, 4 classes from the 7th, 8th, and 9th grades were selected. The survey was done between April 20 and May 19, 2004. Data were analyzed using SAS. Result: The results showed that 19.1% of adolescents smoked cigarettes and 8.4 % drank regularly. The mean score for resilience was 6.92 (range:0-10) and for depression, 23.62 (range:0-50). The adolescents in higher grades reported significantly more experience with pornography. Also, adolescents who reported have fewer conversations with their parents had significantly more experience with pornography. Depression was significantly higher for those students who had better academic skills and higher family income. Resilience level was significantly higher for the students who reported better schools records and higher family income. The most important factor related to the high risk behaviors, depression, and resilience was conversations with parents. Conclusion: This study suggests that to develop an effective high-risk health behavior prevention program for adolescents, it is necessary to include communication skills with the parents.

• The Journal of Korean Academic Society of Nursing Education
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.31-60
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• 2023

Purpose: This study explored the influencing factors on suicide-related behaviors (ideation, plans, and attempts) focusing on mental health problems (anxiety, depression, and loneliness) among Korean adolescents. Methods: A secondary analysis was conducted with data from the 16th Korean Youth Health Behavior Survey collected from in 2020 by the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Chi-square tests and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed. Results: After the adjustment of demographic characteristics and health risk behaviors, the influences of mental health problems on suicidal ideation, plans, and attempts showed the anxiety odds ratio (OR) for severe anxiety vs. minimal (OR 4.65, 4.67, and 3.75), depression (OR 4.27, 3.69, and 4.49), loneliness (OR 2.18, 1.96, and 1.96). Health risk behaviors (violence experience, drug use, stress, smoking, and drinking alcohol) and demographic variables (gender, school record, and socioeconomic status) were also significantly associated with suicide-related behaviors. Conclusion: Anxiety, depression, and loneliness were strong predictors of suicide-related behaviors. Early detection of suicide risks through screening for comprehensive mental health problems was recommended. Suicide prevention that considers the risk factors, including mental health problems and other risk factors, needs to be developed and implemented to reduce suicide risks among adolescents.

• Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.144-153
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• 2021

Objectives: Anxiety disorders are the most common psychiatric disorders in adolescents and seem to occur the earliest among all forms of psychopathology. The aim of this study was to investigate the association of anxiety severity with health risk behaviors and mental health in adolescents. Methods: Data from the 2020 Korean Youth Risk Behavior Web-Based Survey were analyzed. A total of 54948 adolescents responded to the 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7) for the assessment of their anxiety severity as well as to the mental health and health risk behavior survey. Logistic regression analysis, t tests, and variance analysis of a complex sample general linear model were used to examine the association of anxiety severity with health behaviors and mental health. Results: After statistical adjustment for sociodemographic characteristics, the subjects in the severe anxiety group were significantly more likely to be current smokers (odds ratio [OR]: 2.08, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.72-2.50), current drinkers (OR: 1.91, 95% CI: 1.67-2.19), experience habitual substance use (OR: 10.89, 95% CI: 8.22-14.42), have sexual intercourse (OR: 2.10, 95% CI: 1.76-2.51), and have unprotected intercourse (OR: 2.21, 95% CI: 1.67-2.92) than those in the normal group. Anxiety severity negatively correlated with sleep satisfaction and happiness, but positively correlated with stress perception, loneliness, depressive symptoms, and suicidality. Conclusion: Adolescent anxiety is associated with health risk behaviors and poor mental health. Thus, early screening and intervention for anxiety in adolescents could contribute to the management and coping of youth health risk behaviors in the community.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.437-441
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• 2012

Objective: Health risk appraisal is often utilized to modify individual's health behavior, especially concerning disease prevention, and web-based health risk appraisal services are being provided to the general public in Korea. However, little is known about the psychological effect of the health risk appraisal even though poorly communicated information by the web-based service may result in unintended adverse health outcomes. This study was conducted to explore the psychological effect of health risk appraisal using epidemiological risk factor profile. Methods: We conducted a randomized trial comparing risk factor list type health risk appraisal and risk score type health risk appraisal. We studied 60 women aged 30 years and older who had no cancer. Anxiety level was assessed using the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory YZ. Results: The results of multivariate analysis showed that risk status was the independent predictors of increase of state anxiety after health risk appraisal intervention when age, education, health risk appraisal type, numeracy, state anxiety, trait anxiety, and health risk appraisal type by risk status interaction was adjusted. Women who had higher risk status had an odd of having increased anxiety that was about 5 times greater than women who had lower risk status. Conclusions: Our findings indicate that communicating the risk status by individual health risk appraisal service can induce psychological sequelae, especially in women having higher risk status. Hospitals, institutes, or medical schools that are operating or planning to operate the online health risk appraisal service should take side effects such as psychological sequelae into consideration.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.14-20
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• 2012

Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate and quantify the risk of both individual and combined health behaviors on premature mortality in middle aged men in Korea. Methods: In total, 14 533 male subjects 40 to 59 years of age were recruited. At enrollment, subjects completed a baseline questionnaire, which included information about socio-demographic factors, past medical history, and life style. During the follow-up period from 1993 to 2008, we identified 990 all-cause premature deaths using national death certificates. A Cox proportional hazard regression model was used to estimate the hazard ratio (HR) of each health risk behavior, which included smoking, drinking, physical inactivity, and lack of sleep hours. Using the Cox model, each health behavior was assigned a risk score proportional to its regression coefficient value. Health risk scores were calculated for each patient and the HR of all-cause premature mortality was calculated according to risk score. Results: Current smoking and drinking, high body mass index, less sleep hours, and less education were significantly associated with all-cause premature mortality, while regular exercise was associated with a reduced risk. When combined by health risk score, there was a strong trend for increased mortality risk with increased score (p-trend < 0.01). When compared with the 1-9 score group, HRs of the 10-19 and 20-28 score groups were 2.58 (95% confidence intervals [CIs], 2.19 to 3.03) and 7.09 (95% CIs, 5.21 to 9.66), respectively. Conclusions: Modifiable risk factors, such as smoking, drinking, and regular exercise, have considerable impact on premature mortality and should be assessed in combination.

• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.257-271
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• 2015

Purpose: This research examined the trend of school health education, using online research data on health behaviors of adolescents. Then it compared the health perceptions, healthy life practice, and health risk behaviors between students who received health education and students who did not. In addition, it predicted the impact of health education on health risk behaviors of students. Methods: Data from 72,435 participants of this survey were analyzed. Statistical analyses were performed on weighted data using the complex sampling design. Results: In the results of the research, general high schools students had the lowest rate of receiving health education, while sex education was the most actively held throughout the all locations. Next, medium-small cities had the lowest rate of receiving health education. Regarding health risk behaviors, students receiving health education had significantly lower rates of smoking, drinking, and sexual intercourse. Conclusion: This study shows that healthy life practices by students improves with the inclusion of health education, thus indicating that schools should invest in health education. This research generated evidence for the first time in Korea that school health education has a positive impact on health risk behaviors and provides basic data for policy development of school health education.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.37 no.7
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• pp.1091-1097
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• 2007

Purpose: This study was done to survey health behaviors in people at risk for a Cerebrovascular Accident(CVA). Method: From November 21 to December 29, 2005, a questionnaire survey was conducted with 171 people at risk for a Cerebrovascular Accident(LDL of above 130mg/dl & homocysteine of above $15.0{\mu}mol/L$). Their physical composition was measured and blood was collected. Results: 1. Of the subjects, 34.5% were smokers, 61.4% were drinkers, 56.7% did not exercise regularly, 57.3% did not control their weight, 26.9% preferred eating meat, and 32.2% preferred salty food. 2. The gender was different between smoking status($X^2=10.734$, p= .001), and drinking status($X^2=7.185$, p= .007), and the age was different between smoking status($X^2=6.656$, p=.010), and drinking status($X^2=10.722$, p= .001). The $HbA_1C$ level was different for regular exercise($X^2=4.824$, p=.028) and the HDL-cholesterol was different for meat-eating preference($X^2=7.928$, p= .005). The observance of troubling signs was different for a salty food preference($X^2=4.313$, p= .038). Conclusion: It is necessary to develop programs for taking care of people at risk for a Cerebrovascular Accident and test the effects of the programs in order to reduce the risk factors of CVA and enhance health behavior promotion.

• Journal of the Korean Society of School Health
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.240-250
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• 2017

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare the risk of being underweight between multicultural and Korean-origin adolescents. Methods: This study used the Korea Youth Risk Behavior Web-Based Survey data of 2016. A total of 46,457 underweight and normal-weight adolescents were included. General characteristics, health status and health behavior variables, and weight related variables were included. Weighted percentage and means were used to describe the sample. Simple and multiple logistic regressions were conducted using SAS 9.2. Results: From the simple and multiple logistic regression, multicultural adolescents showed a higher risk of being underweight (OR: 1.63, 95% CI: 1.20~2.20; AOR: 1.51, 95% CI: 1.01~2.27) than Korean-origin adolescents. Among the covariates, being female (AOR: 1.90, 95% CI: 1.72~2.10), being older (AOR: 1.18, 95% CI: 1.15~1.22), having poor self-health perception (AOR: 1.56, 95% CI: 1.24~1.82), having longer hours of sleep (AOR: 1.12, 95% CI: 1.09~1.16), having fewer days of exercise (AOR: 0.94, 95% CI: 0.91~0.96), and doing vigorous exercise less (AOR: 0.78, 95% CI: 0.68~0.89) showed a higher risk of being underweight. Self-rated health and effort to control weight were also significantly related to being underweight. Conclusion: Since multicultural adolescents are vulnerable to being underweight, it is necessary to develop intervention programs to reduce the number of underweight multicultural adolescents.

• International Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.13-24
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• 2011

This study compared actual weight with perceived weight, described the prevalence of unhealthy weight control behavior, determined the differences in psychological and personal variables between participants that reported unhealthy weight control behavior and those who did not, and examined the relationship of eating habits to unhealthy weight control behavior for Korean adolescents. The study population consisted of a nationally representative sample of middle and high school students who completed the Fifth Korea Youth Risk Behavior Web-based Survey (KYRBWS): Fifth in 2009. Among the 75,066 participants of KYRBWS, 35,473 (n = 18,851 girls and 16,622 boys) were eligible for a research focused on unhealthy weight control behavior. The results of this research were as follows: First, there were considerable discrepancies (45.1% of girls and 32.8% of boys) between the perceived weight and the actual weight. Second, overall, unhealthy weight control behavior was more prevalent in girls and fasting was the most commonly reported behavior. Third, participants that reported unhealthy weight control behavior scored significantly lower on scaled measures of happiness, health, academic achievement, and economic status; in addition, they scored higher on stress measures. Fourth, girls and boys shared common protective factors of having breakfast and vegetables more often, perceiving their weight as underweight rather than overweight, and having a correct weight conception. Protective factors unique to girls were having lunch and dinner more often. Girls and boys shared common risk factors of the consumption of soda, fast food, instant noodles, and snacks more often, while consumption of fruit more often was a risk factor only for girls. The improvement of protective factors and minimization of risk factors through Home Economics classes (and other classes relevant to health) may mitigate unhealthy weight control behavior of adolescents.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.296-306
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• 2009

Purpose: This study was to identify variables influencing health risk behaviors in adolescents on the basis of the PRECEDE model. Methods: Data were collected from 434 middle school students in Chungbuk Province for two weeks in July 2008. The instrument for this study was a self-reported questionnaire. The SPSS/WIN 12.0 program was used for data analysis, which included t-test, one way ANOVA, Scheffe's test, Pearson's correlation coefficients, and stepwise multiple regression analysis. Results: Adolescents' level of health risk behaviors ($47.32{\pm}7.98$) was below medium. Physical inactivity ($6.73{\pm}2.23$) and Internet addictive behavior ($6.36{\pm}2.11$) were major health risk behaviors. The perceived level of school health education ($30.74{\pm}9.84$) was low. Family function and general self efficacy explained 14.3% of variance in health risk behaviors. Family function was a major predictor of health risk behaviors ($R^2$=.108, p=.000). However, the perceived level of school health education was not a significant predictor of health risk behaviors. Conclusion: For the prevention of health risk behaviors in adolescents, it is necessary that the family and the school collaborate with each other in educational strategies in order to strengthen influential factors such as family function and general self-efficacy.