The Association between Demographic Characteristics, Lifestyle Health Behaviours, and Quality of Life among Adolescents in Asia Pacific Region

Abstract

Background: Given the risk of physical and psychosocial health that emerge in adolescents that are continuing into adulthood, identifying and addressing early signs of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) decline provides an opportunity to ensure that young people have a healthier progression through adolescence. Aim: To investigate the association between demographic characteristics, lifestyle health behaviours, and HRQoL of adolescents who live in Asia Pacific region, including Hong Kong in China, Beijing in China, Akashi in Japan, Seoul in South Korea, and Bangkok in Thailand. Methods: A cross-sectional self-reported survey carried out in a sample of 2296 adolescents that were aged 9–16 years (mean= 12.0; standard deviation [SD] = 1.63) was conducted in the five cities of the Asia Pacific region between January and August 2017. Demographic characteristics, adolescent lifestyle behaviours, and HRQoL were measured with demographic questionnaire, Adolescent Lifestyle Questionnaire’s (ALQ) seven domains and Paediatric Quality of Life’s (PedsQL 4.0) global score, respectively. Mixed multilevel model (MMLM) was used to fit the data. Results: After adjusting the demographic variables, one score increase in ALQ physical participation, nutrition, social support, and identity awareness are associated with an increase in PedsQL global score. On the contrary, one score increase in ALQ health practices is associated with a decrease in the PedsQL global score. The estimated mean of PedsQL global score of South Korea, Beijing, and Japan were better, while the score of Thailand and Hong Kong were poorer. Conclusions: Differentiating the impacts of promoting health behaviours among different countries can help in better understanding the health needs of adolescents in each country, especially in the Asia Pacific region, so that adequate and relevant resources can be allocated to reduce health-risk taking behaviours among this vulnerable group for health-promoting strategies.

Controlled trial of an mHealth intervention to promote healthy behaviours in adolescence (TeenPower): Effectiveness analysis

“…It seems that older adolescents tended to present a significant increase in the ability to manage their stress after the mHealth intervention (TeenPower). These results confirmed the findings of previous studies that highlight the influence of adolescents' age in the development of stress management skills (Hampel, Meier, & Kümmel, 2008;Lee et al, 2019;Monteiro, Balogun, & Oratile, 2014).…”

Associations Between Quality of Life, Psychosocial Well-being and Health-Related Behaviors Among Adolescents in Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese, Thai and the Filipino Populations: A Cross-Sectional Survey

“…Nevertheless, the significant associations between lifestyle and physical and school functioning became weaker when other stronger variables such as emotion, behavioral control and self-esteem were statistically adjusted in the current study. Earlier, Lee, Chien, Tanida, Takeuchi, Rutja, Kwok and Lee [19] found that the lifestyle domains of physical participation, nutrition and health awareness had weaker associations with the overall quality of life than other domains such as social support and identity awareness. However, perceived social support by age only shows minimal association with social functioning of quality of life when age and other variables were statistically controlled in the current study.…”

“…In previous studies, the demographic characteristics such as family-related factors have been shown to be associated with quality of life and psychosocial health conditions among adolescents [16][17][18]. Lee, et al [19] found that adolescent lifestyle and social support were positively associated with quality of life and were different between Asian-Pacific countries. Nowadays, social and cultural changes have created challenges for adolescents to assume roles and responsibilities in health promotion.…”

“…Furthermore, recent evidence from a multinational study in East and Southeast Asia showed that lifestyle behaviors related to nutrition, identity awareness and health awareness were significantly associated with quality of life. Lee, Chien, Tanida, Takeuchi, Rutja, Kwok and Lee [19] conducted a survey of 2296 adolescents aged nine to sixteen in China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Thailand in 2017. They found that physical participation, nutrition, social support, identity awareness and health practices were significantly associated with quality of life, given that country, age, gender, education level, religious belief and parents' marital status were statistically adjusted.…”

Efforts on Changing Lifestyle Behaviors May Not Be Enough to Improve Health-Related Quality of Life Among Adolescents: A Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial

“…Evidence has shown that physical activity (PA) and sedentary behavior (SB) are associated with HRQoL among adolescents ( Jalali-Farahani et al, 2016 ; Wong et al, 2017 ; Lee et al, 2019 ). For instance, after two years of follow-up, Sánchez-Oliva and colleagues found that adolescents who increased their SB had a greater decrease in HRQoL compared to those who changed to active profiles ( Sánchez-Oliva et al, 2019 ).…”