Abstract

LATORRE ROMAN, Pedro Ángel; CAMARA PEREZ, José Carlos  and  GARCIA PINILLOS, Felipe. Sensation seeking and habits of smoking, alcohol consumption and sport practice in Secondary School students. Salud Ment [online]. 2014, vol.37, n.2, pp.145-152. ISSN 0185-3325.

Objective The aim of this study is to analyze the relationship between sensation seeking activity, consumption of alcohol and/or tobacco, and sport practice in teenagers. Methodology In this study, there were 272 participants, all currently attending high school (age=14.14±1.35 years): 130 boys and 142 girls; 93 first year students and 179 second year students. The Sensation Seeking Scale (EBS-J) of Pérez et al. (1987) was used as well as an adaptation of the Health Behavior in School-Aged Children (Currie, 1998), which analyzed lifestyle. Results 76% of the boys and 75.4% of the girls are reported to have consumed alcoholic beverages (p=0.906); 36.2% of the boys and 42.3% of the girls are reported to have consumed tobacco (p=0.304); and 92.3% of the boys and 57.7% of the girls (p<0.001) are reported to have been athletes, a practice which is reduced with age (p=0.009). Age is a risk factor for tobacco and alcohol consumption; however, sex is not indicative of this consumption. Sensation seeking leads to the consumption of alcohol and tobacco because it creates a necessity for excitement and inhibition. No dimension of the EBS-J scale predicted a sedentary lifestyle. Conclusions BS is a personality factor related to the early consumption of substances such as alcohol and tobacco and whose traits were revealed as good indicators of the propensity in teenagers to consume these substances.

Keywords : Teenagers; sports; alcohol; snuff consumption; sensation seeking.

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