Alcohol consumption in school-aged children: a comparison between Lithuania and Georgia
Khurtsidze, Beka |
Komisijos pirmininkas / Committee Chairman | |
Komisijos narys / Committee Member | |
Komisijos narys / Committee Member | |
Balaišytė, Lina | Komisijos narys / Committee Member |
Komisijos narys / Committee Member | |
Komisijos narys / Committee Member |
Introduction: Adolescent’s health is a challenge for developing countries. Georgia and Lithuania are one of those developing countries, and both of them are facing the transition from Soviet culture. The absence of adolescent-friendly healthcare services influence negatively adolescents and youths health and increases the burden of adolescents mortality and morbidity in the country. This Study is focused on alcohol consumption in school-aged children in Lithuania and Georgia. As far as the problem is very relevant in both countries.
Aim of the study: To analyze alcohol consumption related situation among school-aged children in Lithuania and Georgia
Objectives: To review the alcohol consumption situation in school-aged children in Georgia To review the alcohol consumption situation in school-aged children in Lithuania To compare alcohol-related habits of school-aged children in Georgia and Lithuania.
Methods: The study population was young students of public and private schools, aged 11, 13 and 15 years. From Georgia, 2435 children participated in alcohol consumption related questionnaires from which 1266 were male and 1169 female. From Lithuania, 4174 students took a part in a survey from which 2050 were girls and 2124 boys. These age groups were selected due to important stages of development occurring these years. The school-based survey was administered at a national level in both countries. The main reason for school non-response was due to the lack of free time. For analyzing data from Georgia and Lithuania (In I and II objectives to review the situation in Georgia and Lithuania), there was used IBM SPSS 25. For comparison of countries and defining chi-square, data was encoded into different variables and united as one data source, values were changed, and it was used Openepi web software and SPSS together. Categorical variables were shown in numbers and percentages. P-value <0.5 was accepted as significant. For comparison of country groups, there were used, chi-square tests and two-sided z tests. Articles in scientific collections, journals; scientific monographs; statistic collections; Health behavior in school-aged children (HBSC) data, ESPAD data, Eurostat database, printed publications of the World Health Organization(WHO) and other international and national organizations databases were used Results: Consumption of alcohol especially the wine defined to be very high in Georgia for children (figure 4). Related to the big number of "wine consumers" it was suspicious that children can easily get wine, so additional data about the difficulty to get wine for children was analyzed (figure 5). The results for this data defined as expected, most of the children found it either fairly easy or very easy to get wine in Georgia. In Lithuania situation about alcohol consumption in school-aged children is slightly better than in previous HBSC studies but still number of consumers remains high (figure 8-14). By comparing Lithuanian and Georgian data it was expected to get a better alcohol consuming situation in Lithuania, but it was not expected to get such a big significant difference (Table 1; 5).
Conclusions: The situation of alcohol consumption in Georgia in school-aged children is worse than in Lithuania. Children are drinking more alcohol in Georgia and especially the wine.
Practical recommendations: According to the results got, we can recommend increasing education in school-aged children about the harmful use of alcohol. To involve it in school programs and try to increase the awareness of family and society level.
šiame tyrime aprašoma alkoholio vartojimo padėtis mokyklinio amžiaus vaikams Lietuvoje ir Gruzijoje, taip pat palyginami šie du duomenys