A survey has been conducted on the behavior of health of the school-aged children in Armenia. The indicators show how our adolescents take care of their health, in what social conditions they live, what percentage of Armenian teens smoke, drink, use drugs and what sexual behavior they manifest. The adolescents aged 11-17 participated in the survey. In total, 82 schools from different marzes of Armenia were included in the survey, 3679 adolescents aged 11-15 and 1134 adolescents aged 17, who were included from 64 high schools and vocational schools and colleges.
According to the survey, to the question of “How often do you go to school hungry or go to bed hungry because of lack of food at home?”, in average 4% of children responded “always,” 5% of children often go to school hungry or go to bed hungry and 10% responded that this condition happens occasionally. The villagers prevail among the children who often and sometimes go to school hungry and go to bed hungry. Incidentally, mostly boys aged 11 are hungry. The survey indicates that as compared with the survey in 2009-2010, the mentioned indicator by the recent survey is deteriorated. According to the analysis, 51% of adolescents aged 11-15 belong to the lowest welfare group, 30% – the average and 19% – high welfare group. 57% of respondents aged 17 are from the low welfare group, 30 percent – from average and 13% – high.
The authors of the survey note that although the adolescents’ age is considered relatively a healthy period, however, there are often seen quite a variety of health-related complaints among the adolescents. The unsatisfactory health condition affects the normal maturity and has long-term negative effects. According to the authors, the physical and mental health self-assessment is directly related to physical complaints and symptoms of depression, family betterment and social welfare. The authors of the survey have found out that the majority of complaints by the adolescents is related to different pathological conditions, stressful situations or they are saying that they are overloaded with the lessons, out-of-class lessons, have unhealthy lifestyle, and abuse watching television and spending time at the computer.
One of the healthy lifestyles is the hygiene, breakfast, and going to bed at the right time. 13% of surveyed adolescents never have breakfast and 18% of 15-17 year olds have responded that they never have breakfast. The surveys showed that the sleeping behavior of the adolescents is not correct. According to the survey, 19% of 11-15 year olds go to bed after the midnight on working or school days and 36% of surveyed adolescents go to bed later hours after midnight on weekends. 50% of 17 year olds go to be after midnight on schooldays and 60% go to bed at later hours after midnight on weekends. The authors mention that the findings show that the prevalence of violence in the school environment is alarming.
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19% of adolescent boys and 11% of girls have responded that they have not attended school at least once during the month preceding the survey to avoid the possible violence or persecution month. 43% of respondent-boys and 27% girls aged 11-15 said that they were exposed to the teacher’s verbal abuse at least once. Unlike other countries’ adolescents, small part of the Armenian children smoke.
According to the survey, 17% of the surveyed boys and 4% of girls began smoking for the first time at the age 13 and earlier age. 20% of respondents aged 17 said that they have ever smoked and 11% was smoking regularly. 37% of adolescents started using alcohol at age 13 or at earlier age, mainly beer and wine. 4% of the respondents aged 15 and 10% of aged 17 under survey mentioned about the use of marijuana. The sexual behavior under survey revealed that 21% of boys and 1% of girls aged 15 and 52% of boys and 3% of girls aged 17 mentioned about the presence of sexual experience. Only 51% of 15 year-old boys use condoms during their last intercourse. Note that the survey was conducted by the Arabkir Medical Complex for Children and Adolescent Health Care Institute in 2013-2014.
Nelly BABAYAN
