Health Behaviors in School-Age Children and Quality of Life

Abstract

Introduction: Health behaviour is commonly found such as smoking, consuming alcohol, unhealthy eating behaviour, physical activity, perception of school, violence and bullying currently are associated with better quality of life. School-age Children are at risk to adapt their environment in doing healthy risk behaviors. Objective: To describe the health behaviors and examine the association between health behaviour and their quality of life.Methods: Health behaviour (i.e., eating habit, physical activity, smoking, drinking alcohol, sexual behaviour, violence, school behaviour, and social life) were examined among 200 School-age Children in a Junior High School in Teluk Naga, Tangerang, Indonesia using Indonesian-Health Behaviour School-age Children questionnaire, and also using translated PedsQL Questionnaire that developed for Pediatric quality of Life, which measures 4 domains of quality of life (physical functions, mental status, social and school functions). Results: School-age children showed high prevalence of eating habit (n = 130), less physical activity (n= 77), smoking (n = 47), drinking alcohol (n = 55), sexual behaviour (n=62), violence (n= 90), low economy status (n= 65), school perception (n= 43), and difficulties in social life (n= 63). In addition, this study revealed for the quality-of-life school-age children have prevalence in good physical functions (47%), mental status (42%), social (58%) and school functions (43.5%). In a multivariate model, health behaviours (physical activity, smoking, sexual behaviour, social activity and violence) (P<0.05) were dominantly correlated with quality of life. Conclusion: The current study provides significant information on how health risk behaviour influenced the quality of life, and this study has the potential to develop better health education and promotion programs in school-age children.