Young Students, Risk Behavior And Its Relationship With Personality Traits Study

Risk behavior means the behavior which directly or potentially threatens the healthand safety of human beings, or even results in the negative consequences. Theadolescents are usually considered as the body group of risk behavior because of theirspecificity, and the research on adolescents' risk behavior has been becoming the mainissue in epidemiology and psychology.Since the late 1980s, western especially American scholars have systematicallyinvestigated adolescents' risk behavior, while the research in China is newly startedwithout systematic and integrative study. In this study, we investigate the status quo ofsome risk behaviors and their relationship with personality traits, such as, unintentionalinjury behavior, violence behavior, leaving home and suicide ideation, smoking, drinkingalcohol and other drug uses, insecure sexual behavior, improper weight control, unhealthydietary behavior, and less physical activities of 1699 students in Heze which are stratifiedat random from grade one to grade two in junior middle school, senior middle school,vocational middle school and college, using the Youth Risk Behavior SurveyQuestionnaire (YRBSQ, revised) and Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ). Theresults are as follows:1. The risk behavior of adolescents in Heze is partly more extensive and severe, thatis, First, they have disobeyed traffic rules when walk on public road or ride in a bicycle,never or rarely worn seat belts when ride in a car driven by someone else, ever triedcigarette smoking and drunk alcohol, and had unhealthy dietary behavior and lessphysical activities. Secondly, their property have stolen or deliberately damaged, theyhave considered leaving home, drunk alcohol on ≥1 of the 30 days preceding the survey,exercised and eaten less food to control weight during the 30 days preceding the survey,and so on. The occurrence rate of risk behaviors above is generally higher than that insome big cities in our country and in America2. There are significant differences among the subjects in region between town andcountry, school type, gender and parents' cultural degree.Between town and country, the students coming from town and suburban havesignificantly higher scores in unintentional injury behavior and violence behavior thanthose coming from country;in contrast, they have lower scores in smoking, drinkingalcohol and other drug uses, and unhealthy dietary behavior. The students of juniormiddle school in town in leaving home, suicide ideation, and improper weight controlhave significantly higher scores than those in country, on the contrary, they have lowerscores in drinking alcohol and other drug uses, and unhealthy dietary behavior than thosein country. The students of senior middle school in town in improper weight control andless physical activities have significantly higher scores than those in country, while theyhave lower scores in violence behavior, leaving home, suicide ideation, smoking,drinking alcohol and other drug uses, and unhealthy dietary behavior than those incountry.There are significant differences in the school types. The scores of the junior middleschool students are significantly higher than those of the college students in unintentionalinjury behavior and violence behavior, and higher than those of the senior middle school,the vocational middle school s and the college students in insecure sexual behavior, butlower in smoking, drinking alcohol and other drug uses, and less physical activities, andlower than those of the senior middle school students in leaving home, suicide ideation,improper weight control and unhealthy dietary behavior. The senior middle schoolstudents have higher scores than the junior middle school students in leaving home,suicide ideation, smoking, drinking alcohol and other drug uses, improper weight control,unhealthy dietary behavior, and less physical activities, than the vocational middle schoolstudents in unhealthy diet and less physical activities, and than the college students inunintentional injury behavior, violence behavior, leaving home, suicide ideation,improper weight control, unhealthy dietary behavior, and less physical activities. But theyhave lower scores in violence behavior than the junior middle school and the vocationalmiddle school students, in drinking alcohol and other drug uses than the college students.The vocational middle school students have significantly higher scores than the juniormiddle school students in smoking, drinking alcohol and other drug uses and lessphysical activities, the senior middle school students in smoking, the junior middle schooland the college students in improper weight control and unhealthy dietary behavior, andthe senior middle school and the college students in violence behavior. But they havelower scores than the college students in drinking alcohol and other drug uses and lessphysical activities, the junior middle school students in insecure sexual behavior, and thesenior middle school students in unhealthy dietary behavior. The scores of the collegestudents are significantly higher than those of the middle school students in smoking,drinking alcohol and other drug uses, the junior middle school students in unhealthydietary behavior and less physical activities,but lower than those of the junior middleschool students in insecure sexual behavior, the senior middle school students in leavinghome, suicide ideation, unhealthy dietary behavior and less physical activities, the middleschool students in unintentional injury behavior, violence behavior and improper weightcontrol.Between boys and girls, the scores of girls in insecure sexual behavior,improperweight control and less physical activities are significantly higher than those of boys,whereas lower in other risk behaviors.There are significant differences in parents' cultural degree. The lower parents'cultural degree is, the easily higher scores their children have in drinking alcohol andother drug uses and unhealthy dietary behavior. The higher mother's cultural degree is,the higher scores their children have in unintentional injury behavior and violencebehavior.3. It shows that the adolescent risk behaviors are closely related between riskbehaviors and personality traits, among risk behaviors.Between risk behaviors and personality traits, psychical and nervous personalitytraits have a significant positive correlation with unintentional injury behavior, violencebehavior, leaving home and suicide ideation, smoking, drinking alcohol and other druguses, improper weight control, unhealthy dietary behavior, and less physical activities, asignificant negative correlation with insecure sexual behavior. Introversion-extroversionpersonality traits has a conspicuous positive correlation with unintentional injurybehavior, violence behavior, smoking, insecure sexual behavior and improper weightcontrol, but a significant negative correlation with unhealthy dietary behavior and lessphysical activities. All kinds of risk behaviors have a significant negative correlation withthe dimensions of camouflage.Among risk behaviors, there is a significant positive correlation between any twokinds of risk behaviors of unintentional injury behavior, violence behavior, leaving homeand suicide ideation, smoking, drinking alcohol and other drug uses, while improperweight control has also a significant positive correlation with leaving home and suicideideation, a obvious negative correlation with smoking. Unhealthy dietary behavior showsa significant negative correlation with unintentional injury behavior and violencebehavior, but a significant positive correlation with drinking alcohol and other drug uses.Less physical activities have an obvious negative correlation with violence behavior,smoking, drinking alcohol and other drug uses except an obvious positive correlationwith weight control and unhealthy dietary behavior. It indicates that the adolescentsengaging in one risk behavior may increase likelihood for engaging in other riskbehaviors.