Health status in adolescents: which relation with family image?

Abstract

SUMMARYIntroduction — Many studies have been carried out recently to investigate the relationship between health conditions and family and self characteristics. Objectives — To identify family characteristics (such as type of family, socio-economic status, parent immigration, affection for parents, parents' psychological and physical health) and self characteristics (age, drug use, satisfaction for several life circumstances, psychosomatic symptomatology) that are differently distributed by sex and levels of psychological and physical distress among teen-agers. Methods — We carried out a cross-sectional study on a sample of teen-agers attending high schools in Pavia (Italy), using a self-administered questionnaire. The students were divided in four groups having different levels of psychological and physical distress, based on GHQ-30 (psychological distress indicator), on the number of hospital admissions and consultations to a physician in the last year (the last two are physical distress indicator). Data were analysed applying the multivariate analisy of Canonical Variate. Results — 1346 students were sampled, but only 1189 questionnaire were analysed: 36.8% regarding males and 63.2% females. The Canonical Variate analysis indicated that psycosomatic symptomatology, satisfaction for several life circumstances and affection for parents are important for describing the four distress groups. Conclusions — Only affection for parents has an important role on psychological and physical distress of adolescents, while family characteristics traditionally considered associated with psychological and physical distress in teen-agers (such as living with one or without parents, low socio-economic status) are not associated.