Prevalence of emergency contraceptive pill use among Spanish adolescent girls and their family and psychological profiles.

BACKGROUND: Adolescent girls' family context and psychological characteristics play important roles in their sexual behavior, including the use of the emergency contraceptive pill (ECP). This study aims to (1) determine the prevalence of ECP use among girls who have had sexual intercourse and (2) comparatively analyze their family and psychological profiles according to whether they have used ECPs. METHODS: The sample of 1735 Spanish girls aged 15 to 18 came from a representative sample of the 2014 edition of the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study. Of this sample, 398 girls had sexual intercourse and reported their ECP use. Data collection for the HBSC study was performed through an online questionnaire to which adolescents responded anonymously in school. Data analyses were descriptive and bivariate and were performed with the statistical program IBM SPSS Statistics 23. RESULTS: The results demonstrated that 30.65% of girls who had sexual intercourse used ECPs. Noticeable differences in paternal knowledge and communication with the father were observed between girls who used the ECP at least once and those who did not use it. In contrast, differences between girls who used the ECP once and those who used it twice or more were pronounced with regard to parental knowledge, communication with parents, maternal affection, life satisfaction, sense of coherence and depression. CONCLUSIONS: This work demonstrates a high prevalence of ECP use and a more positive family and psychological profile for girls who used ECP once compared with those who used it twice or more.

Social Support from Developmental Contexts and Adolescent Substance Use and Well-Being: A Comparative Study of Spain and Portugal.

The aim of this study was to analyse the contribution of social support from family, friend and school (teacher and classmate) contexts in substance use (tobacco and alcohol use) and well-being (life satisfaction and health-related quality of life). Participants were 5,784 Portuguese and 22,610 Spanish adolescents aged 11 to 16 years, from the 2014 edition of the Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC) study in Portugal and Spain. Results showed that for a higher life satisfaction, family (p < .001, partial η2 = .032), teacher (p < .001, partial η2 = .018) and classmate (p < .001, partial η2 = .031) support were important in Portugal, and family (p < .001, partial η2 = .056) and friend (p < .001, partial η2 = .015) support in Spain. Similarly, for a better health-related quality of life, all the social support variables were relevant in Portugal (family: p < .001, partial η2 = .063; teacher: p < .001, partial η2 = .032; classmate: p < .001, partial η2 = .054; friend: p < .001, partial η2 = .034) and in Spain (family: p < .001, partial η2 = .054; teacher: p < .001, partial η2 = .014; classmate: p < .001, partial η2 = .018; friend: p < .001, partial η2 = .040). In contrast, only family support (p < .001, partial η2 = .014) was relevant in Portugal for tobacco use. Therefore, social support was more relevant for adolescent well-being than for adolescent substance use, and the most relevant source of support was family support, in both Spain and Portugal.

Perceived quality of social relations and frequent drunkenness: a cross-sectional study of Spanish adolescents.

AIM: The aim of the study was to examine, for female and male students separately, whether perceived quality of relationships with peers and parents and relations in school predict self-reported frequent drunkenness among Spanish adolescents. METHODS: The Spanish data from the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Study (HBSC) 2010 survey were used including 1177 female and 1126 male students aged between 15 and 16 years. RESULTS: For both genders, students reporting low school satisfaction had increased odds of frequent drunkenness. Among females, low and medium levels of classmate support were associated with decreased odds of frequent drunkenness, whereas low perceived maternal knowledge as well as medium and low satisfaction with the family increased odds of being frequently drunk. The proportion of male students reporting medium satisfaction with friendships had significantly lower odds of frequent drunkenness compared with those with high level of satisfaction with friendships. CONCLUSION: We found different associations between perceived quality of social relations and frequent drunkenness among male and female students. Results showed that social relations seemed to better predictors of frequent drunkenness among female than male students and that other factors than social relations may contribute to explain excessive alcohol use among Spanish adolescents.

Understanding the joint effects of family and other developmental contexts on the sense of coherence (SOC): a person-focused analysis using the Classification Tree.

Using a person-focused approach, the present study sought to identify meaningful constellations of contextual factors that led to predominantly high and low levels of sense of coherence (SOC). Specifically, the contributions of the quality of parent-child relationships, teacher and classmate support, models of behaviour in the peer group, and neighbourhood assets were examined in a representative sample of Spanish adolescents aged 13 to 18 that had taken part in the 2010 edition of the study Health Behaviour in School-aged Children. The quality of parent-child relationships emerged as the main predictor of SOC for the whole sample, but the remaining factors also made significant contributions, which underlines the importance of the simultaneous analysis of the main contexts in adolescents' lives. Additionally, the identified constellations usually included compensatory effects, so no factor should be considered to be completely determining. Interestingly, the role of support at school was different depending on contextual profiles.

Sense of coherence and substance use in Spanish adolescents. Does the effect of SOC depend on patterns of substance use in their peer group?

The aims of this work were to analyse the relationships between sense of coherence (SOC) and substance use among Spanish adolescents and to examine the potential moderator effect of the patterns of substance use in the peer group. Sample consisted of 5475 Spanish adolescents aged 15 to 18 from the 2010 edition of the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study. Statistical analysis included cluster analysis to identify groups of adolescents according to their peer group's patterns of substance use and logistic regression with SOC and peers' pattern of consumption as predictors of current tobacco use, current alcohol use, life-time drunkenness and current drunkenness. The results showed that a strong SOC seemed to reduce the adolescents' likelihood of involving in tobacco use and drunkenness, but it was not associated with being a current drinker. In addition, the protective effect of SOC was moderated by peers' patterns of substance use. Specifically, SOC had a significant protective influence in adolescents whose peer group showed either a nonconsumption pattern or a pattern of frequent alcohol use and occasional drunkenness; but the protective effect of SOC disappeared if peers showed a pattern of consumption that included illegal drugs. In conclusion, SOC tends to act as a protective personal variable with respect to substance use during adolescence, but the influence exerted by the peer group seems to moderate the aforementioned protective effect of SOC.

Analysis of the importance of family in the development of sense of coherence during adolescence.

AIMS: The aim of this work was to study the influence of several family dimensions on sense of coherence (SOC) in adolescence, controlling the possible effects from the demographic variables, gender and age. METHODS: The sample consisted of 7580 adolescents between the ages of 13 and 18, who had taken part in the 2010 edition of the WHO Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study in Spain. RESULTS: The results showed that there were no significant gender differences in SOC levels. However, age had a significant influence on SOC. Higher levels of SOC were found in adolescents aged 13 and 14 compared to older participants. Family variables explained 18% of SOC variability, with affection, easy communication with parents, and parental knowledge as the most outstanding variables. In addition, positive relationships between parents and family affluence had a significant role in explaining SOC levels. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that the family context plays an important role in providing meaningful experiences for the development of a strong SOC in adolescence.

Parental knowledge and adolescent adjustment: substance use and health-related quality of life.

This study analyses two models (maternal and paternal) in which parental care and sources of parental knowledge moderated the relationship between parents' knowledge about their adolescents' lives and adolescents' substance use and health-related quality of life. The sample was made up of 15942 Spanish adolescents who participated in the 2006 edition of Health Behavior in School-aged Children Study. Results showed that increased parents' knowledge about their adolescents' lives reduced adolescents' substance use and increased their quality of life. With respect to the moderation relationship, a limited effect was found. However, parental care and sources of parental knowledge used by both parents generally had main effects on adolescents' substance use and health-related quality of life, with care being the most relevant variable in the health-related quality of life, while knowledge was the most relevant one for substance use.

[An approach to the assessment of the effectiveness of a drug use prevention program in secondary education in Andalusia]. / Una aproximación a la evaluación de la eficacia de un programa de prevención de drogodependencias en Educación Secundaria en Andalucía.

This article examines the analysis of drug use among Secondary Education students in Andalusia from two different studies: the Health Behavior in School-aged Children Study (HBSC), in its 2006 edition, and a study assessing the implementation of the Prevenir para Vivir ("Prevent to Live") drug use prevention program in the education field. To this end, on the one hand the paper analyzes the use of tobacco, alcohol and cannabis among Andalusian adolescents on the HBSC Study, and on the other, selects two groups of adolescents to examine and compare their drug use: a group from the HBSC Study who had not participated in any drug use prevention program and in whose schools the staff had not received training in relation to these issues (called HBSC Control Group), and a group of adolescents who had participated in the Prevenir para Vivir drug use prevention program working with specialized staff (called Prevenir para Vivir Experimental Group). The results indicate, first, higher levels of drug use in older students than in younger ones; and, second, on comparing the two groups, that adolescents who have received drug prevention programs with specialized staff are not always those most likely to present healthier drug use. These results must therefore be interpreted as offering only limited support to drug use prevention programs.