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Factors associated with good self-rated health in European adolescents: a population-based cross-sectional study

  • Original Article
  • Published:
International Journal of Public Health

Abstract

Objectives

The aim of the present study was to investigate self-reported health status and associated factors.

Methods

In this cross-sectional study, the participants were 6501 adolescents (52% females) aged 14–19 years from three European countries: Croatia, Lithuania and Serbia. Self-rated health was assessed by using one item question: “How would you perceive your health?” The answers were arranged along a 5-point Likert-type scale: (1) very poor, (2) poor, (3) fair, (4) good and (5) excellent. The outcome was binarized as “good” (fair, good and excellent) and “poor” health (very poor and poor). Potential factors associated with self-rated health included demographic (age, gender, socioeconomic status and body-mass index), social (social capital) and lifestyle (physical activity and psychological distress) variables.

Results

In both univariate and multivariate models, being older, being a boy, having higher level of family, neighbourhood and school social capital, participating in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity more frequently and having low psychological distress were associated with good self-rated health.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest strong associations between social and lifestyle factors and self-rated health. Other explanatory variables will require future research.

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Acknowledgements

This paper was part of the project Croatian Longitudinal Physical Activity in Adolescents. Special thanks to Marjeta Mišigoj-Duraković, PhD., as the leading professor on the project, who let us conduct the study on the project participants. Also, we would like to thank all the teachers and students for their enthusiastic participation in the study.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Kinesiology, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia

    Dario Novak & Lovro Štefan

  2. Faculty of Sports Education, Lithuanian Sports University, Kaunas, Lithuania

    Arunas Emeljanovas & Brigita Mieziene

  3. Faculty of Sport and Physical Education, Belgrade, Serbia

    Ivana Milanović & Snežana Radisavljević Janić

  4. Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

    Ichiro Kawachi

Authors
  1. Dario Novak
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  2. Lovro Štefan
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  3. Arunas Emeljanovas
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  4. Brigita Mieziene
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  5. Ivana Milanović
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  6. Snežana Radisavljević Janić
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  7. Ichiro Kawachi
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Contributions

DN, AE, BM, IM, SRJ and IK conceived and designed the experiments. DN, AE, BM, IM and SRJ performed the experiments. LŠ analyzed and interpreted the data. DN, AE, BM, IM, SRJ and IK contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools. DN and LŠ wrote the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lovro Štefan.

Ethics declarations

Ethical statement

All the procedures in the study were performed in accordance to Declaration of Helsinki and were approved by the Institution of the leading author.

Funding

This study represents a secondary analysis of a larger study completed by the lead author that was funded by the lead university.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare they have no conflicts of interest to declare in the publication of this paper.

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Novak, D., Štefan, L., Emeljanovas, A. et al. Factors associated with good self-rated health in European adolescents: a population-based cross-sectional study. Int J Public Health 62, 971–979 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-017-1015-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-017-1015-0

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