Socio-Demographic Determinants of Health-Seeking Behaviors among adolescents (A study on students aged 12-18 in Tehran, Iran)

The type of adolescent attitude toward health issues and their orientation to health seeking behaviors can guarantee their current and future physical, mental and social health and leads to increase the healthy life expectancy for population. The main purpose of this research is the study of socio-demographic determinants of health-seeking behaviors among a sample of 670 adolescents 12 to 18 years-old in Tehran. This research is a quantitative research and it has been carried out by the survey method. The mean of total score of this index obtained for "boys" 54/2 and for girls 52/3 than 100. According to the multivariate analysis and path analysis of 26 factors, the most important socio-demographic and religious variables that affecting the health-seeking behaviors of adolescent respectively are 9 variables: “Attention of around individuals to the health”, “age”, “adolescent attitude on health”, “religious behaviors”, “father's education”, “age interval between children”, “family size”, “religious attitudes”, and “marital status of parents”. These variables could explain about 36 percent of the health behaviors variances among adolescents.. Based on the social determinants paradigm, in this study religious and social factors, compared with demographic variables, have greater weight in explaining the healthy behaviors of adolescents. To provide a comprehensive analysis of the status of health beliefs and behaviors of adolescents. intervention of other psychological and structural components in addition to these variables is necessary.