Demographic and socio-economic factors associated with multiple health risk behaviours among adolescents in Serbia: a cross sectional study

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to examine the relationships between demographic and socioeconomic characteristics and engaging in multiple risk behaviours among adolescents in Republic of Serbia. METHODS This study presents a cross sectional study of 683 adolescents aged 15 to 19 attending high school. The database from the 2006 National Health Survey was used. As a measure of demographic and socio-economic characteristics: age, type of settlement, family structure, having one's own room, school success and the household wealth index were used. Multivariate logistic regression model was performed. RESULTS Boys were more than twice as likely to engage in multiple risk behaviours than girls. Adolescents who were older (OR = 5.82, 95% CI = 3.21-10.54, boys; OR = 3.76, 95% CI =1.77-7.99, girls) and adolescents who achieved low or moderate (OR = 1.82, 95% CI = 1.02-3.26, boys; OR = 3.36, 95% CI =1.51-7.44, girls) school success had significantly higher risk than younger ones and those with high school success. Also, boys who came from a richer class households (OR = 3.14, 95% CI =1.02-9.66) and girls from incomplete family (OR = 5.07, 95% CI = 2.06-12.50) had higher risk than boys from the poorest households and girls from complete family. CONCLUSIONS Further preventive interventions in Serbia should be gender and age specific, oriented towards older adolescents, those who have low or moderate school success, boys from richer class households and girls who live in incomplete families.