Background
Increasing the participation rate in health screenings is a major challenge. In West Virginia, USA, where a statewide, state-funded school-based health screening program has been offered to fifth-grade students and their parents/guardians for nearly 20 years, more than 50% of eligible participants consistently opt-out. Consequently, the purpose of this investigation is to determine a parent/guardian’s reasons for deciding whether to participate in a school-based health screening.
Methods
A cross-sectional study design was used and a total of 216 parents/guardians of fourth-grade students from 10 elementary schools in the northeast region of West Virginia participated in the study. The survey, based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB), was used to explore a parent/guardian’s intentions when opting in or out of a school-based health screening for their child, and included items that represented direct determinants, indirect determinants, and behavioral intentions. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to measure the questionnaire’s potential to predict intentions and identify the predictive strength of each direct determinant.
Results
Results show that attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control in the TPB (43%) provided strong evidence for predicting participation intentions. Specifically, attitude (β=0.73, P<0.001) was the strongest predictor of intention, followed by subjective norms (β=-0.17, P<0.01).
Conclusion
This study suggests that strategies to facilitate positive attitudes and increase parental awareness of health screening initiatives may influence participation rates within community- and school-based programming.

Citations

• Associations Between Ecological Determinants and Weight Status Changes Among Children from Vulnerable Populations: Empirical Findings from a National Panel Survey in South Korea
  Jiyoung Park, Gill A. Ten Hoor, Gahui Hwang, Soorack Ryu
  Western Journal of Nursing Research.2025; 47(4): 231.     CrossRef

Background
We investigated whether offspring protect or jeopardize in parents.
Methods
We used data from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging and performed a longitudinal analysis of 10,236 individuals at baseline (2006) to estimate the association between offspring-related factors and self-rated health among individuals ≥45 years of age.
Results
The estimate for self-rated health was 0.612 times lower (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.503–0.746; P<0.0001) for those with zero offspring. The estimate for self-rated health was 0.736 (95% CI, 0.635–0.853; P<0.0001) for those with five offspring or more. The estimate for self-rated health was 0.707 (95% CI, 0.528–0.947; P=0.020) for males with zero offspring. The estimate for self-rated health was 0.563 (95% CI, 0.422–0.751; P<0.001) for females with no offspring and for females with five or more offspring. The estimate for self-rated health was 0.686 times lower (95% CI, 0.573–0.822; P<0.0001) for those with five or more offspring compared to females with two offspring.
Conclusion
Those with more offspring (≥5) and those with no offspring tended to have an increased probability of low self-rated health. Overall, our results suggest that offspring have a significant positive effect on self-rated health, which was evident graphically as an inverted U-shape.

Citations

• Sleep problems, pain interference, and global subjective health outcome: Findings from a representative aging study in Ghana
  Razak M. Gyasi, Emmanuel Konadu, Priscilla Appiah, Desmond Agyei, Emmanuel Nyaaba, Michael Kwadwo Ntiamoah, Hubert Bimpeh Asiedu, Elizabeth Nana Mbrah Koomson-Yalley, Margaret Makafui Tayviah, Jones Opoku-Ware, André Hajek
  Geriatric Nursing.2025; 61: 73.     CrossRef
• Associations between vigorous physical activity, social ties, social support, and self-reported health among older adults in Accra, Ghana
  Nestor Asiamah, Kyriakos Kouveliotis, Richard Eduafo, Richard Borkey, Zulkarnain Jaafar
  PLOS Global Public Health.2023; 3(2): e0001582.     CrossRef
• KLoSA—Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging
  Jungun Lee
  Korean Journal of Family Medicine.2020; 41(1): 1.     CrossRef
• Association of employment status and income with self-rated health among waged workers with disabilities in South Korea: population-based panel study
  Jae Woo Choi, Juyeong Kim, Euna Han, Tae Hyun Kim
  BMJ Open.2019; 9(11): e032174.     CrossRef

Background
Children of obese parents are more likely to be obese themselves. Parental lifestyle habits could induce or aggravate children's obesity. This study was conducted to assess the relationship between parental lifestyle habits and children's overweight. Methods: Children who were enrolled in this study were first grade students from elementary schools in Gwacheon and Seoul. A total of 121 children (50 overweight children and 71 normal weight children) and their parents underwent anthropometric measurements and also were surveyed by a questionnaire. Results: The children of obese parents were more likely to be diagnosed as overweight compared to the children whose parents were normal weight (Father: P=0.037, Mother: P=0.001). Among the paternal lifestyle habits, hours of watching TV or computer usage (adjusted odd ratio =2.08, 95% CI=0.90∼4.80) and eating frequency of soda, ice cream, cake and chips (adjusted OR=5.77, 95% CI=1.65∼20.22) were found to be related to their children being overweight. Among the maternal lifestyle habits, hours of watching TV or computer usage (adjusted OR=2.35, 95% CI=0.99∼5.58), the frequency of eating breakfast (adjusted OR: 2.48, 95% CI=1.07∼5.75) and the frequency of overeating (adjusted OR: 2.15, 95% CI=0.91∼5.11) were found to be related to their children being overweight. Additive adjustment of children's lifestyle habits made the relationship between maternal lifestyle habits and children's overweight reduced. However, the odds ratio of paternal lifestyle habits was not reduced. Conclusion: Parental obesigenic lifestyle habits were related to children's overweight. Maternal lifestyle habits could affect her children's weight via an effect on her children's lifestyle habits. (J Korean Acad Fam Med 2008; 29:395-404)

Background
The purpose of this study was to examine the association between the change of parental weight status and the change of their child's weight status over 2 years. Methods: A total of 379 children ages 11-13 years were measured their height and weight in 2001 and 2003. Their parents completed a questionnaire including self-reported parental weight and height during the same period. Parental weight status was classified as overweight (BMI≥25 kg/m²) and non-overweight (BMI＜25 kg/m²). Children's weight status was classified as overweight and non-overweight using the age and gender-specific BMI established by the Korean Academy of Pediatrics. The weight status over 2 years was categorized as a group of persistent overweight, persistent non-overweight, shifting overweight to non-overweight, and shifting non-overweight to overweight. Results: After adjusting for the child's gender and the father's weight status, the odds ratio for being persistently overweight over 2 years in a child having a mother with persistent overweight was 2.8 (95% CI: 0.9-8.5) compared to a child having a mother with persistent non-overweight. Likewise, the odds ratio for being persistently overweight over 2 years in a child having a father with persistent overweight was 2.9 (95% CI: 1.4-6.1) compared to the child having a father with persistent non-overweight. Conclusion: Parental weight status over 2 years was associated with the 2-year weight status in children. The parents- and family-based intervention are needed to prevent and manage childhood obesity. (J Korean Acad Fam Med 2008;29:336-341)

Background
The purpose of this study was to find the weight-related factors related to active attitude towards weight loss in children who are overweight or obese and their parents. Methods: A total of 252 elementary school children who were overweight or obese and their parents were surveyed on weight-related attitudes for one month in May 2003 in Kimhae. The definition of overweight and obesity was based on age and sex-specific Korean children's BMI references established in 1998. Results: Among the total, 64.5% of children and 76.4% of parents thought frequently about losing weight in children. Among the total, 52.8% of children and 47.6% of parents tried losing weight in children more than three times. In children, the factors related to frequent thoughts of losing weight were gender, body mass index (BMI), body dissatisfaction index, and the score of eating attitude (P＜0.05). Parents' thought about their children's losing weight and the efforts to persuade their children to lose weight were related to children's frequent thought about losing weight. The children's factors related to trying to lose weight by themselves were age, BMI, and the score of eating attitude. The parent's factors related to children trying to lose weight were body dissatisfaction index of their children by parents, parent's eating attitude score, parent's thought about children's losing weight and making efforts to persuade children to lose weight by parents. The children's eating attitude was related to frequent thoughts about losing weight (odds ratio 1.05, 95% CI 1.03∼1.07) and trying to lose weight more than 3 times (odds ratio 1.02, 95% CI 1.003∼1.04) after adjusting for other factors. Likewise, parents' effort to persuade their childrento lose weight was related to children's effort to lose weight (odds ratio 2.62, 95% CI 1.34∼5.1). Conclusion: Active attitude towards losing weight in overweight or obese children was related to parent's attitude to wards losing weight. (J Korean Acad Fam Med 2007;28:179-186)

Background
: Among the over-the-counter drugs, non-opioid analgesics are widely used in Korea. Non-opioid analgesics may have potential adverse effects such as side effects, tolerance, and addiction when used inappropriately. Moreover, children have less power to make a rational decisions than adults. Therefore, the role of parents in analgesic use is more and more important in children. This study was designed to investigate the frequency of use of analgesics in children and the behavior of parents administering them.

Methods : From April to May 2000, we collected questionnaires on the use of analgesics for relieving children's pain which were completed by parents from 3 elementary schools in Seoul. Student t-test and linear by linear test were applied to compare the difference between analgesic-administered group and non-administered group.

Results : The subjects were 630 parents among 702 respondents. Common reason for the parents to administer analgesics to their children were common cold, headache, abdominal pain etc. Pain severity were high in earache and fever and lower in abdominal pain and headache. Among the total 457(72.1%) parents were said to have kept analgesics at home. Acetaminophen and ibuprofen were the most common kept analgesics at home. Were more analgesic-keeping house likely to analgesics at home. Younger parents, younger children and mothers. Only 25.4% among those with analgesics at home gave analgesics during the last month. The administration rate was higher in the higher education levels(P<0.05), and increased linear by linear according to the number of house-keeping analgesics(P<0.05).

Conclusion : Seventy two percent of parents kept analgesics at home. But only a quarter of the parents gave analgesics to their children. The administration rate of analgesics in relieving pain in children by their parents was higher in the highly educated parents group and showed linear increase in proportion to the number of house-keeping analgesics.