Adolescent health-risk behaviours in Thailand: patterns from national cross-sectional school surveys conducted in 2008, 2015, and 2021

Abstract

Background: This study looked at trends in a number of health-risky behaviours among teenagers in Thailand from three separate surveys. Methods: Data from 12,183 teenagers (mean age: 13.9 years, SD=1.2; age range: 11–16 years) who took part in three cross-sectional national school surveys in Thailand in 2008, 2015, and 2021 were analyzed. A self-administered survey was used to evaluate thirty-three health risk behaviours. By using logistic regression analyses to treat the study year as a categorical variable and adjusting food insecurity and age, the significance of a linear trend was examined. Results: We found a significant increase in the prevalence of overweight/obesity, inadequate fruit and inadequate vegetables intake, leisure-time sedentary behaviour, physical inactivity, parental tobacco use, physical injury, bullying victimisation, loneliness, not having close friends, sleep problems, ever sex, and suboptimal hand hygiene after toilet use, and a significant decrease in physically attacked. Among boys, a significant increase of inadequate tooth brushing, and suboptimal hand hygiene (not always using soap to wash hands), and a decrease in smoking quit attempts, participation in physical fights, and number of sexual partners, and among females, a decrease in non-condom use was found. Furthermore, among girls, a significant increase in the prevalence of current tobacco use (cigarettes and other), current alcohol use, lifetime drunkenness, trouble from alcohol use, lifetime drug use, suicidal ideation and plan was found. Conclusion: Overall, from 2008 to 2021, there was a decrease in four health risk behaviours among boys and/or girls, while among boys there was an increase in fourteen health risk behaviours and among girls twenty health risk behaviours. In Thailand, school health programmes for teenagers are recommended.