Alcohol is deleterious to physical and mental health as well as social well-being. This study aims to examine the prevalence of alcohol consumption and factors associated with its use among school-going Malaysian adolescents. The Global School-Based Student Health Survey (GSHS) 2012 employed 2-stage clustering design to Malaysian secondary school respondents aged 12 to 17 years. The prevalence of current alcohol usage was 8.9% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 7.8-10.07) overall, 11.2% (95% CI: 9.80-12.80) among males, and 23.4 (95% CI: 21.40-25.50) among Chinese students. Multivariate logistic regression showed that adolescents who had used alcohol were more likely to have used substance (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 3.39; 95% CI: 2.33-4.99), experienced injury (aOR = 1.53; 95% CI: 1.20-1.95), and engaged in sexual behaviors (aOR = 1.42, 95% CI: 1.12-1.79), and fights (aOR = 1.23; 95% CI: 1.08-1.41). The current national policies on alcohol should be strengthened to curb alcohol consumption among adolescents.
Study name: Global School-Based Student Health Survey (GSHS)
Introduction: The Ministry of Health had initiated a national programme known as “KOSPEN” to study the prevalence of Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs) and its risk factors among the population. The aim of this study is to assess the awareness, knowledge and acceptance of KOSPEN programme among
Community Development Department (KEMAS) personnel in Southern Zone, Malaysia.
Methods: The cross-sectional study was conducted between October and mid December 2014. The study used validated self-administered questionnaires to collect data from the 2375 KEMAS staff from the state of Johor, Malacca and Negeri Sembilan. SPSS version 20 was used for data analysis.
Results: The results revealed that only 25.5% of respondents were aware that they were on the KOSPEN committee and 65.7% said that they knew the functions of KEMAS in KOSPEN. 90.8% were aware that their responsibilities included identifying localities for KOSPEN, identifying volunteers (85.7%) and attending KOSPEN training (75.3%). In terms of knowledge, most of them knew the objectives of KOSPEN, such as “KEMAS will add on the value of the programmes and its activities” (84.3%) and “to establish trained health volunteers in the community” (85.9%). They also knew that healthy eating habits (94.7%), active lifestyle (93.4%), body weight management (87.0%), no smoking (86.8%) and health screening (92.2%) were the components of KOSPEN. Majority of the respondents perceived that the components for intervention in the community were good. The highest accepted component was health
screening (83.5%), follow by healthy eating habits (82.0%), active lifestyle (80.4%), no smoking habit (76.9%) and body weight management (76.1%).
Conclusion: the awareness, knowledge and acceptance of KOSPEN programme by KEMAS personnel are good. Several measures are currently being carried out to improve and strengthen the implementation of KOSPEN programme such as funding, screening equipment and health education materials.
BACKGROUND: Smoking is a learnt behavior during adolescence and understanding the factor/s associated with smoking will assist in identifying suitable measures in combating the rising prevalence of smoking among adolescents. This research aimed to identify the factor/s associated with smoking among form four students in Kota Tinggi, Johor. Multistage sampling was used to select a representative sample of students in 2008 and data were collected using a self-administered validated questionnaire. This study revealed that the overall smoking prevalence was 19.0% with a significantly higher proportion of male smokers (35.8%) as compared to females (3.15%). Adolescents who were male (aOR 6.6, 95%CI 2.61-16.4), those who had peer/s who smoked (aOR 4.03, 95% CI 1.31-12.4), and those who studied in rural areas and Felda Settlements ( aOR 4.59, 95 CI 1.11-18.0; aOR 9.42, 95%CI 3.91-29.1) were more likely to smoke in the past one week. On the other hand, adolescents with better knowledge on the hazards of smoking and negative attitudes towards smoking were less likely to smoke (aOR 0.51, 95%CI 0.37-0.72; aOR 0.67, 95%CI 0.46-0.99). Future promotional and interventional programmes on smoking should be considered and the above identified risk factors integrated to reduce smoking prevalence among students of school-going ages in Kota Tinggi. Johor.