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Background Physical activity (PA) is recognised as one of the leading and effective strategies to prevent non-communicable diseases that boosts the immune system to fight against diseases. Closures of schools, sport clubs and facilities because of COVID-19 reduced the opportunities to participate in PA. We aimed to examine physical activity levels of late adolescents, the contexts to be physical active and its changes during the spring 2020 lockdown. Methods A national representative sample of late adolescents in general upper secondary school (n = 2408, females = 64%, mean age = 17.2y, SD = 0.63) completed self-report online surveys on PA behaviours between March and June 2020. Multinominal logistic regression analyses were performed to identify correlates with PA, and decision tree analyses to ascertain the perceived changes on PA during lockdown based on sport club aspirations and levels of PA. Results Among the late adolescents, the distribution of PA frequency was 23% (0-2 days/week), 35% (3-4 days/week), 30% (5–6 days/week) and 12% (7 days/week), and differences between males and females were not statistically significant. Participation in both indoor and outdoor PA were 50 times more likely to report daily PA (OR = 54.28, CI = 15.16–194.37) than non-participation. A quarter of late adolescents were not part of a sports club, yet their PA levels increased. Although sports club members generally perceived they did less PA during lockdown, over a third of sport club members with competitive aspirations reported daily PA. Conclusions Overall, most late adolescents reported their PA levels decreased during lockdown. Findings from this study continue to demonstrate factors associated with PA in the context of the COVID-19 lockdown. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-021-12263-w.

Aims: Loneliness is an important public health challenge for all ages. This study reports time trends of loneliness among adolescents over a 12-year period and analyses the strength of the associations between loneliness, health complaints, and medicine use. Methods: Data were derived from the cross-sectional Finnish Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study conducted in 2006, 2010, 2014, and 2018. The study population is based on a random sample of schools with 20,444 participants aged 11–15 years. The trends were analysed with a Mantel–Haenszel test, and the strength of the associations was evaluated by mixed-effects logistic and linear regressions. Results: An increasing prevalence in frequent loneliness (2006: 11%; 2018: 15%) was evident over the 12-year study period, especially in girls and 15-year-olds. Among all adolescents, loneliness was associated with a higher risk of recurrent health complaints and medicine use to treat the corresponding health issues, especially nervousness (odds ratio 5.8) and sleeping difficulties (odds ratio 7.6). Conclusions: Adolescence is a period of higher risk of frequent loneliness and associated health complaints. In this study, loneliness was common among adolescence and an increasing trend of loneliness was observed between 2006 and 2018. Also, psychosomatic health complaints and medicine use were strongly associated with loneliness. Persistent loneliness is a significant health risk and failure to resolve loneliness before entering adulthood may imply significant concerns for future well-being.

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to examine the trends between 2002 and 2018 in school pressure and school satisfaction among 15-year-old students, across countries and by gender, in the WHO European region and North America, and explore whether there are variations between countries and by gender in the co-occurrence of school pressure and school satisfaction. Methods: Data from the 32 countries that participated in the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study (HBSC) study between 2002 and 2018 were used. Statistical analyses included ttests, binary logistic regression analyses, and chi-square tests, as required by each of the study aims. Results: School satisfaction tended to increase over the period 2002e2018 among boys, whereas school pressure increased among girls. Also, gender differences tended to dissipate in school satisfaction and generally increase in school pressure. The co-occurrence of school satisfaction and school pressure in 2017/2018 shows that the majority of students are found in the “not pressured enot highly satisfied” and “pressuredenot highly satisfied” groups. There were more boys in the former group and more girls in the latter group. Conclusion: Few students in the 32 countries belonged to the “not pressuredehighly satisfied” group, which from a public health perspective may be seen as the most desirable group. The increases in school pressure in girls from 2002 to 2018 and their overrepresentation in the pressured groups require further attention. Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades RYC-2017e 21626

1) Background: The use of social media has become an integral part of adolescents’ daily lives. However, the intensive use of social media can develop into a health-threatening addiction, but unfavourable health consequences can occur even with less use. Social media user groups categorized as no-risk, moderate risk (of developing problematic behaviour), and problematic use were examined with reference to their prevalence, their associations with individual determinants and health, and the increased health risk between groups. (2) Methods: The Finnish nationally representative HBSC data (persons aged 11, 13, and 15, n = 3408) and descriptive and binary logistic regression analysis were applied. (3) Results: Problematic social media use (9.4%) was most common among older age groups, and among persons with moderate/low school achievement, low health literacy, and low parental monitoring. Belonging to a moderate risk group (33.5%) was most frequent among girls, and among adolescents with low/moderate parental monitoring and health literacy. All the negative health indicators systematically increased if the respondent belonged to a moderate risk or problematic use group. (4) Conclusions: The study confirmed the association between problematic social media use and negative health outcomes and highlighted the need to pay close attention to adolescents at moderate risk who exhibited negative health outcomes. peerReviewed

Aim: The first aim of this study was to explore the prevalence of loneliness and subjective health complaints (SHCs) among school-aged children in Finland. The second aim was to analyse to what extent perceived loneliness explains any variance in SHCs among school-aged children. Method: A representative sample of 5925 Finnish children and adolescents from grades 5 ( Mage=11.8 years), 7 ( Mage=13.8) and 9 ( Mage=15.8) completed the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) survey. Descriptive statistics were used to examine the prevalence of health complaints and loneliness. Structural equation modelling was used to test how strongly loneliness was associated with SHCs. Results: The prevalence of loneliness and SHCs was higher among girls and increased with age. Loneliness was a significant predictor of health complaints, especially of psychological symptoms among girls and among ninth grade students. Conclusions: The findings indicate that loneliness is a major risk to the health and well-being of school-aged children. The strong association between loneliness and SHCs highlights the importance of active preventive actions to reduce loneliness.

Introduction Straightlining, or identical responses across all items within a multi-item scale, is often taken as an indication that responses to all items in a questionnaire are of poor quality. The purpose of this study was to examine straightlining on two scales: The Sense of Unity Scale (SUS) and the short version of the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (SWEMWBS). Methods Data stem from the 2017–2018 data collections in four Nordic countries of the Health Behaviour in School-children study (HBSC) (15-year-old students only; 50.9% girls; n = 5928). Data were weighted to adjust for oversampling of Swedish-speaking Finnish students and to equalize sample size across countries. The main analyses were done with general linear modeling with adjustments for cluster effects (school classes). Results The proportion with straightlining on SUS was 22.8%, varying from 5.8% among Swedish girls to 46.4% among Finnish boys. The proportion with straightlining on SWEMWBS was 18.4%, varying from 5.2% among Norwegian girls to 46.0% among Finnish boys. Straightlining on one of the scales correlated with straightlining on the other one. Straightlining tended to inflate Cronbach's α values and reduce number of factors in factor analyses. Associations between the two scales and external variables tended to be lower among straightlining students. Associations between external variables (other than SUS/SWEMWBS) are on average slightly weaker among straightliners. Straightlining students obtained more favorable scores on several resource-related variables. Conclusion Although some problems have been identified, straightlining does not serve well as a general indicator of poor data quality. publishedVersion