0000000000874623
AUTHOR
P Lofstedt
On the art of doing surveys among adolescents
Abstract The aim is to discuss methodological challenges for research on adolescent positive mental health. A first consideration is which questions should the measurement instrument answer. In the clinical context it should have the properties of giving enough information for making a diagnosis of high quality. In the public health context, its objective may be to give information that enables the researcher to describe trends at the population level and provide guidance on areas of intervention. The HBSC study is monitoring the health and health behaviour of school-aged children in a public health context. It is a population survey, defined by the form of data collection and the method of…
On the time trends among school-aged children in the Nordic countries
Abstract Long-term trends in mental health of school-aged children can be analysed in the HBSC study. In Sweden the proportion of the children that report at least two weekly health complaints during the last six months has increased from the first data collection 1985/1985 to the latest 2017/2018 among all age groups for both girls and boys. Among the 11-year-old it reached 41 % among girls and 30 % boys, and among 15-year-old girls 62 % and boys 35 %. Can we trust this? The prevalence of two or more weekly health complaints showed large differences by country over time and especially in 2014, when Iceland and Sweden showed an almost 10%-point larger prevalence of multiple weekly symptoms …