Subjective assessment of health in secondary school adolescents

Introduction
In order to assess the health of adolescents as they develop, it is highly recommended that positive health indicators are utilised, including health-related quality of life, while simultaneously taking into account the potential impact of their social environment.

Aim of the research
The present study has as its aim the assessment of health-related quality of life in adolescents to determine the existence of relationships between subjective assessments of health and selected environmental factors, such as place of residence and type of school.

Material and methods
The study included 588 second-year pupils from general-education, technical, vocational, and basic vocational secondary schools. The methods applied included survey and interview techniques. The research tool used was the Polish version of the KIDSCREEN 52 questionnaire, to test the health-related quality of life in children and adolescents, which allowed the authors to conduct a subjective assessment of health in terms of 10 categories, including physical and mental well-being, moods and emotions, self-perception, relationship with parents, home life, peers, social support, autonomy, school environment, social acceptance, and financial resources.

Results
As a result of the analysis of relationships between the particular dimensions of health-related quality of life and the type of school attended by the adolescents surveyed, it was stated that there exists a statistically significant dependence (p < 0.05) for categories such as physical and mental well-being, self-image, autonomy, school environment, and social acceptance. There was no impact of the place of residence of the adolescents surveyed on the values of the results measured with the KIDSCREEN questionnaire, and in no case was the result statistically significant (p > 0.05).

Conclusions
Type of school has a significant influence on the subjective assessment of health, and a particularly favourable assessment was returned by adolescents attending basic vocational school. Place of residence does not affect the assessment of health-related quality of life in the sample group.