Objective:
To explore the relationship between pubertal status, pubertal KAP and adolescents quality of life and the moderating effect of pubertal KAP between pubertal status and quality of life, and to provide a reference for making measures to improve adolescents quality of life.
Methods:
A descriptive cross-sectional study design which recruited 6 746 adolescents in two districts of Chongqing with cluster sampling was applied. Data was collected by Adolescent Quality of Life Scale developed by our team, Pubertal Development Scale(PDS) from Petersen and Crockett, self-designed KAP questionnaire and basic situation questionnaire.
Results:
The early puberty, mid-puberty and late puberty suffered lower physical, psychological and total quality of life than the pre-pubertal(P<0.05). The mid-puberty (B=-1.10, P<0.01) and late puberty (B=-2.88, P<0.01) had lower social quality of life than the pre-pubertal Significant difference was not found between pubertal dimension and pubertal status(P>0.05). Pubertal KAP impacted on psychological(B=0.02), social(B=0.04), pubertal(B=0.04) dimensions and total quality of life(B=0.09) positively(P<0.01), but no physical dimension(P=0.06). Moderating effect results revealed that pubertal KAP moderated the negative impact of pubertal status on social dimension (B=0.03, P=0.02) and total quality of life(B=0.06, P=0.01), but no psychological dimension(P>0.05).
Conclusion
Promoting puberty health education of adolescents was the key to improving their quality of life.