[Psychosocial health among children and adolescents in North Rhine Westphalia: the role of age, gender and type of school].
OBJECTIVE
Children and adolescents in Germany are generally considered to be healthy if health is measured with "classic" indicators of health. However, health impairments increasingly emerge in terms of psychosocial health. The present study addresses the question whether and what aspects of psychosocial health are associated with age, gender and socioeconomic status.


METHODS
Data were obtained from the North Rhine-Westphalian sample of the "Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC)" study in 2006. Overall, 4 324 students aged 11-15 years were interviewed with a standardised questionnaire. Descriptive methods were used to analyse the association between age, gender and socioeconomic status and the four measures of psychosocial health. The socioeconomic status of the adolescents was measured by type of school.


RESULTS
About 20% of the adolescents suffer from impairments in their psychosocial health. In general, girls report worse psychosocial health than boys. Student's perceived rating of psychosocial health decreases with increasing age. Independently of gender, pupils from general school rate their health worse than pupils from grammar school.


CONCLUSIONS
The results underline that there are manifold health problems in adolescence, which can lead to severe diseases in later life such as chronic diseases. The findings suggest that preventive strategies should be directed toward girls and pupils from general schools.
Bohn
V
V
Fakultät für Gesundheitswissenschaften, AG Prävention und Gesundheitsförderung, Universität Bielefeld, Bielefeld.
Rathmann
K
K
Richter
M
M
D000293:Adolescent; D017677:Age Distribution; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany / Q000453:epidemiology; D054624:Health Status Disparities; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012574:Schools / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D017678:Sex Distribution; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013334:Students / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*