Factors that influence health risk behaviours among teenagers

ABSTRACT

Objective: To identify the factors that influence health risk behaviours among teenagers in Trinidad and Tobago. Design and Methodology: A quantitative, descriptive research study was carried out among teenagers attending four public secondary schools in the St. George East Educational District in Trinidad. A self administered questionnaire which was modified by the researchers was distributed to 148 study participants to determine how the factors Sociodemographic characteristics, peer-pressure, social environment/community, media and gender influenced their health risk behaviour. Results:The study found that 31% of the participants were influenced by peer-pressure to engage in bullying while 20% drank alcohol, 15% engaged in illicit sex while 10% of the participants were influenced to smoke and 24% revealed that peer pressure had no influence on their behaviour. The study also determined that the media influenced 41% of the participants to engage in bullying. Participants also reported that their social environment/community had an influence on their health risk behaviours; the most prevalent behaviour was drug use (36%) while bullying accounted for 34%, followed by alcohol consumption (17%), then smoking (10%), and illicit sex (3%). Conclusion: While this study only investigated the factors that influence health risk behaviour among a small sample of teenagers in one school district and a generalization cannot be made to include all teenagers there is sufficient evidence to recommend further research and for school health programmes that promote health education and awareness of health risk behaviours to reduce the likelihood of teenagers engaging in health risk behaviours.