Adolescents' self-rated health

Abstract

Bearing in mind the social and political events that have taken place in this country in the last decade of the 20th and at the beginning of the 21st century, health of adolescents in this country shows certain specific characteristics. Adolescent health self-assessment, as a subjective health indicator in this population group, depends primarily on how the adolescent perceives themselves, their physical appearance, their health-related behaviours as well as on their communication and relationships with others. The purpose of this review is to gain an insight into the relationship between health indicators and health self-assessment in adolescents, based on the existing literature. The literature reviewed was selected by searching the Pub Med database, for a ten-year period, for references that relate to the adolescent population, i.e., 10to 19-year-olds, in Serbia and world-wide. Studies performed thus far confirmed a statistically significant correlation between demographic data (sex, age, family structure, place of residence) and socioeconomic health determinants, and adolescent health self-assessment. A positive correlation was found related to physical activity as a protective behaviour, while evidence supporting the correlation of a poor health self-assessment with the habit of smoking and a lack of physical activity is consistent across literature. This is not the case with alcohol consumption, while no correlation was found in the majority of studies related to dietary habits. Insights gained in this literature review may be used as evidence-based facts when advocating important issues regarding the preservation and improvement of health in the adolescent population group.