Self-Rated Health and Life Satisfaction in Iranian Children and Adolescents at the National and Provincial Level: The CASPIAN-IV Study

Abstract

Background: Self-rated health (SRH) and life satisfaction (LS) are of increasing interest to medical researchers, because of their close relationship with different aspects of health. Objectives: This paper describes the patterns of LS and SRH among Iranian children and adolescents, analyzed by sex and residence area, at the national and provincial levels. Methods: In this nationwide study 14880 students, aged 6-18 years, were selected by multistage random cluster sampling from urban and rural areas of 30 provinces in Iran, as part of the fourth survey of a national surveillance program conducted in 2011-2012. LS and SRH were assessed through a questionnaire following the World Health Organization-Global School-based Student Health Survey (WHO-GSHS) protocols. Results: 13486 out of 14880 invited students completed the study (participation rate: 90.6%). Their average age was 12.47 ± 3.36 years. The prevalence of good SRH at national level was 80.13 (95% CI: 79.25, 80.99); the prevalence of LS among Iranian students at the national level was 80.17 (95% CI: 79.18, 81.13). At the provincial level, the highest and the lowest LS scores were 85.42 (80.01, 89.55) and 74.78 (68.74, 79.99), respectively. Likewise, the highest and the lowest prevalence of good SRH was 88.36 (83.99, 91.66) and 74.22 (69.06, 78.78), respectively. Conclusions: Our findings show that, at provincial levels, a complex set of known/unknown influencing factors affect individuals’ assessments of their own health quality. Understanding these patterns of SRH and LS could be useful for better health policy and more targeted studies in this field.