Citation

Lopez Gonzalez ML, Najera Morrondo P, Lopez Nomdedeu C, Secall Mellen L, Valle Gomez MO, Cueto Espinar A. Gac. Sanit. 1992; 6(31): 157-163.

Vernacular Title

Adolescencia en riesgo: una encuesta de salud entre estudiantes de C.O.U.

Affiliation

Facultad de Medicina, Area de Medicina Preventiva y Salud Publica, Universidad de Oviedo.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1992, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

1428584

Abstract

The present study investigates the level of health education in a representative sample of 804 pre-university Asturian students, randomly selected from the official list of the Ministry of Education and Science. We used a questionnaire (designed by us) in order to measure the knowledge, attitudes and behaviour related to some of the most important health determining factors. The survey was carried out by interviewing small groups of students in the classroom situation. Although it was found that the majority perceived themselves as healthy or very healthy, these young people are widely exposed to risk factors: 12% have suffered from more than 25 episodes of drunkenness during the previous year; 43.53% smoked to some extent and only 3.86% identified the days of maximum risk of pregnancy in a supposed menstrual cycle, although 31% maintained sexual relationships. Theoretically, 92% selected health as the most important factor among the three most fundamental values for life. They also think that illegal drugs are the most important health problem at present for young people. There is a contradiction between the high theoretical importance given to health, the good self-qualification of it, and the observed presence of important risk factors. A certain failure of the educational system with respect to primary prevention can be claimed.

Language: es