Abeer Shaheen, Omayyah Nassar, Samiha Jarrah, Mary Norton, Inaam Khalaf and Khaldoun Hamdan
The University of Jordan, Jordan
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: Primary Health Care
This study was conducted to assess the occurrence of physical activity, nutritional habits, tooth brushing, and seat belt use behaviors among adolescent school students in Jordan, and to examine the effect of psychosocial aspects of school on these behaviors. A cross-sectional descriptive correlational design was used to draw a sample of in-school adolescents aged between 11 to 15 years. The final sample included 1166 adolescents from five public and two private schools. Study participants filled a translated version of Health Behavior in School Aged Children questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, correlational (point biserial), and bivariate analyses (Chi-square tests) were used to analyze the data. The study results revealed that negative perception of school climate and lower perception of peer support were associated with lower frequency of tooth brushing behavior. Lower perception of teacher support at school was associated with lower frequency of physical activity and tooth brushing behavior. Among study sample, 34.5% of the adolescents practiced exercise outside school hours once a week or less frequent and only 53.1% of them brushed their teeth more than once a day. Regarding seat belt, 44.7% of the adolescents used it rarely or never. Concerning soft drinks carbonated sugary drinks and sweets consumption, about 64% and 83.3% of the adolescents respectively consumed them once a day or more often. The percentages of adolescents who never drank low fat or whole fat milk were 43.1% and 38.2% respectively. The study concluded that school adolescents do engage in unhealthy behaviors. Psychosocial aspect of schools affects students� physical activity, nutritional habits, tooth brushing, and seat belt use behaviors.
Email: abeer.shaheen@ju.edu.jo
