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Relationship between health-related quality of life and physical fitness in Norwegian adolescents

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Abstract

Aims

This cross-sectional study investigated the association between health-related quality of life (HRQoL), cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and muscular fitness in 14-year-old adolescents.

Methods

Norwegian adolescents (N = 1985) carried out a 10-min running test to assess cardiorespiratory fitness and three different muscular fitness tests (handgrip, sit-ups, and standing broad jump) and answered the KIDSCREEN-27 questionnaire to provide HRQoL data. Linear-mixed effect models were applied to detect relationships among the variables.

Results

Running-test results were positively associated with higher scores in the following KIDSCREEN domains: physical well-being, psychological well-being, autonomy and parent relationships, and school environment (β = 0.01–0.04; p < .01 for all). Performance in sit-ups test was positively associated with higher scores in three out of five KIDSCREEN domains: physical well-being (β = 0.31; p < .001), social support and peers (β = 0.16; p = .023), and school environment scores (β = 0.19; p = .006). An inverse association was found between the handgrip test results and the score on psychological well-being domain (β = − 0.10; p = .013).

Conclusions

The associations between HRQoL and physical fitness were trivial (abdominal strength and handgrip strength) to small (CRF) but confirmed that earlier findings from children also are applied to adolescents. Explosive strength in the lower body showed no association with HRQoL. Further research should investigate the direction of causality.

Trial registration

Clinicaltrials.gov ID nr: NCT03817047. Registered 01/25/2019 ‘retrospectively registered’.

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Data availability

The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available as publications are planned but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

HRQoL:

Health-related quality of life

PA:

Physical activity

CRF:

Cardiorespiratory fitness

SES:

Socio-economic status

BMI:

Body mass index

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to all adolescents and teachers who participated in this study for their time and effort allowing us to complete this study. We would also like to thank all students and research assistants who participated in the data collection. We are also grateful to the ScIM Study group.

Funding

The study was funded by grants from the Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Education and Sport Sciences, University of Stavanger, 4036, Stavanger, Norway

    Eva Leibinger, Andreas Åvitsland & Sindre M. Dyrstad

  2. Centre for Physically Active Learning, Faculty of Education, Arts and Sports, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Sogndal, Norway

    Geir Kåre Resaland

  3. Department of Sports Medicine, Norwegian School of Sports Sciences, 0806, Oslo, Norway

    Runar B. Solberg & Elin Kolle

  4. Centre for Epidemic Interventions Research, Norwegian Institute for Public Health, Oslo, Norway

    Runar B. Solberg

Authors
  1. Eva Leibinger
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  2. Andreas Åvitsland
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  3. Geir Kåre Resaland
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  4. Runar B. Solberg
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  5. Elin Kolle
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  6. Sindre M. Dyrstad
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Contributions

Each author has contributed to the conception and design of the work. EL, RBS, and EK conducted the analysis, EL wrote the first draft of the paper. All authors participated in writing the paper and approved the final version.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Eva Leibinger.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Ethical approval

The project was reviewed by the Regional Committee for Medical and Health Research Ethics (REK) in Norway, which concluded that the study did not require full review by REK according to the Health Research Act of 2008. The study was approved by the Norwegian Centre for Research Data.

Consent to participate

Written informed consent from the participants and their parents or caretakers was obtained prior to data collection.

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Not applicable.

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Leibinger, E., Åvitsland, A., Resaland, G.K. et al. Relationship between health-related quality of life and physical fitness in Norwegian adolescents. Qual Life Res 32, 1133–1141 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-022-03309-6

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