title: Self-rated health of Chinese adolescents: distribution and its associated factors.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Self-rated health is a valid and relevant indicator of individuals' and populations' health status, and has been shown to be a critical predictor of some medical endpoints. The studies concentrating on Chinese adolescents' self-rated health were scarce. The present study aimed to understand the self-rated health and its associated factors of Chinese adolescents.
  
  
  METHODS
  Ten schools including junior schools, senior schools and universities of Hefei in Anhui Province of China were randomly selected. A cross-sectional survey was conducted to the selected 5226 students to investigate their demographic variables, sleep quality, self-rated health and degree of depression, anxiety and loneliness. In terms of the instruments, Self-rated Health Measurement Scale Version 1.0, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, UCLA Loneliness Scale, Beck Depression Inventory, Self-rating Anxiety Scale and the demographic survey were used in the present study.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The sleep quality, self-rated health and degree of depression, anxiety and loneliness among different grade levels were different (p < 0.01 or <0.05). The multivariate analysis indicated that young age, poor sleep quality and high degree of depression, anxiety and loneliness were significantly associated with poor self-rated health of adolescents.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The adolescents' poor self-rated health may be attributed to many causes especially the psychological reasons. Future interventions that focus more on the inner causes may be the better steps to make adolescents healthy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Health Statistics, School of Public Health, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui Province, China.
authors.forename: Zhiwei
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Hong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Su
authors.forename: Yanfeng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zou
authors.forename: Juan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Jialing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Weiwei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Chang
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior; D002681:China; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006801:Humans