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Loneliness and health risk behaviours among Russian and U.S. adolescents: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: For some adolescents feeling lonely can be a protracted and painful experience. It has been suggested that engaging in health risk behaviours such as substance use and sexual behaviour may be a way of coping with the distress arising from loneliness during adolescence. However, the assoc...

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Autores principales: Stickley, Andrew, Koyanagi, Ai, Koposov, Roman, Schwab-Stone, Mary, Ruchkin, Vladislav
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4020347/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24735570
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-366
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author Stickley, Andrew
Koyanagi, Ai
Koposov, Roman
Schwab-Stone, Mary
Ruchkin, Vladislav
author_facet Stickley, Andrew
Koyanagi, Ai
Koposov, Roman
Schwab-Stone, Mary
Ruchkin, Vladislav
author_sort Stickley, Andrew
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: For some adolescents feeling lonely can be a protracted and painful experience. It has been suggested that engaging in health risk behaviours such as substance use and sexual behaviour may be a way of coping with the distress arising from loneliness during adolescence. However, the association between loneliness and health risk behaviour has been little studied to date. To address this research gap, the current study examined this relation among Russian and U.S. adolescents. METHODS: Data were used from the Social and Health Assessment (SAHA), a school-based survey conducted in 2003. A total of 1995 Russian and 2050 U.S. students aged 13–15 years old were included in the analysis. Logistic regression was used to examine the association between loneliness and substance use, sexual risk behaviour, and violence. RESULTS: After adjusting for demographic characteristics and depressive symptoms, loneliness was associated with a significantly increased risk of adolescent substance use in both Russia and the United States. Lonely Russian girls were significantly more likely to have used marijuana (odds ratio [OR]: 2.28; confidence interval [CI]: 1.17–4.45), while lonely Russian boys had higher odds for past 30-day smoking (OR, 1.87; CI, 1.08–3.24). In the U.S. loneliness was associated with the lifetime use of illicit drugs (excepting marijuana) among boys (OR, 3.09; CI, 1.41–6.77) and with lifetime marijuana use (OR, 1.79; CI, 1.26–2.55), past 30-day alcohol consumption (OR, 1.80; CI, 1.18–2.75) and past 30-day binge drinking (OR, 2.40; CI, 1.56–3.70) among girls. The only relation between loneliness and sexual risk behaviour was among Russian girls, where loneliness was associated with significantly higher odds for ever having been pregnant (OR, 1.69; CI: 1.12–2.54). Loneliness was not associated with violent behaviour among boys or girls in either country. CONCLUSION: Loneliness is associated with adolescent health risk behaviour among boys and girls in both Russia and the United States. Further research is now needed in both settings using quantitative and qualitative methods to better understand the association between loneliness and health risk behaviours so that effective interventions can be designed and implemented to mitigate loneliness and its effects on adolescent well-being.
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spelling pubmed-40203472014-05-15 Loneliness and health risk behaviours among Russian and U.S. adolescents: a cross-sectional study Stickley, Andrew Koyanagi, Ai Koposov, Roman Schwab-Stone, Mary Ruchkin, Vladislav BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: For some adolescents feeling lonely can be a protracted and painful experience. It has been suggested that engaging in health risk behaviours such as substance use and sexual behaviour may be a way of coping with the distress arising from loneliness during adolescence. However, the association between loneliness and health risk behaviour has been little studied to date. To address this research gap, the current study examined this relation among Russian and U.S. adolescents. METHODS: Data were used from the Social and Health Assessment (SAHA), a school-based survey conducted in 2003. A total of 1995 Russian and 2050 U.S. students aged 13–15 years old were included in the analysis. Logistic regression was used to examine the association between loneliness and substance use, sexual risk behaviour, and violence. RESULTS: After adjusting for demographic characteristics and depressive symptoms, loneliness was associated with a significantly increased risk of adolescent substance use in both Russia and the United States. Lonely Russian girls were significantly more likely to have used marijuana (odds ratio [OR]: 2.28; confidence interval [CI]: 1.17–4.45), while lonely Russian boys had higher odds for past 30-day smoking (OR, 1.87; CI, 1.08–3.24). In the U.S. loneliness was associated with the lifetime use of illicit drugs (excepting marijuana) among boys (OR, 3.09; CI, 1.41–6.77) and with lifetime marijuana use (OR, 1.79; CI, 1.26–2.55), past 30-day alcohol consumption (OR, 1.80; CI, 1.18–2.75) and past 30-day binge drinking (OR, 2.40; CI, 1.56–3.70) among girls. The only relation between loneliness and sexual risk behaviour was among Russian girls, where loneliness was associated with significantly higher odds for ever having been pregnant (OR, 1.69; CI: 1.12–2.54). Loneliness was not associated with violent behaviour among boys or girls in either country. CONCLUSION: Loneliness is associated with adolescent health risk behaviour among boys and girls in both Russia and the United States. Further research is now needed in both settings using quantitative and qualitative methods to better understand the association between loneliness and health risk behaviours so that effective interventions can be designed and implemented to mitigate loneliness and its effects on adolescent well-being. BioMed Central 2014-04-16 /pmc/articles/PMC4020347/ /pubmed/24735570 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-366 Text en Copyright © 2014 Stickley et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Stickley, Andrew
Koyanagi, Ai
Koposov, Roman
Schwab-Stone, Mary
Ruchkin, Vladislav
Loneliness and health risk behaviours among Russian and U.S. adolescents: a cross-sectional study
title Loneliness and health risk behaviours among Russian and U.S. adolescents: a cross-sectional study
title_full Loneliness and health risk behaviours among Russian and U.S. adolescents: a cross-sectional study
title_fullStr Loneliness and health risk behaviours among Russian and U.S. adolescents: a cross-sectional study
title_full_unstemmed Loneliness and health risk behaviours among Russian and U.S. adolescents: a cross-sectional study
title_short Loneliness and health risk behaviours among Russian and U.S. adolescents: a cross-sectional study
title_sort loneliness and health risk behaviours among russian and u.s. adolescents: a cross-sectional study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4020347/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24735570
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-366
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