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Licensed Unlicensed Requires Authentication Published by De Gruyter October 18, 2016

Association of short stature with life satisfaction and self-rated health in children and adolescents: the CASPIAN-IV study

  • Shahrzad Jafari-Adli , Mostafa Qorbani , Ramin Heshmat EMAIL logo , Shirin Hasani Ranjbar , Ehsaneh Taheri , Mohammad Esmaeil Motlagh , Mehdi Noorozi , Omid Safari , Gita Shafiee , Fatemeh Rezaei , Saeid Safiri and Roya Kelishadi EMAIL logo

Abstract

Background:

Data on stature in Iranian children and adolescents at national level are limited. The purpose of this study was to investigate the association of short stature with life satisfaction (LS) and self-rated health (SRH) in children and adolescents.

Methods:

Data were obtained from a nationwide survey entitled childhood and adolescence surveillance and prevention of adult non-communicable disease (CASPIAN IV). Participants were 14,880 children and adolescents, aged 6–18 years, who were selected using multistage, cluster sampling method from rural and urban areas of 30 provinces of Iran. LS and SRH were evaluated for every participant by the validated questionnaire prepared based on the global school-based student health survey of the World Health Organization (WHO). Height was measured according to the standard protocol. Short stature was defined as height less than −2 standard deviation (SD) below the mean height for age and sex.

Results:

Overall, 13,484 participants with a mean (SD) age of 12.5 (3.36) years (49.24% girls, 50.75% boys) completed the study (response rate 90.6%). The prevalence of short stature, poor SRH and life dissatisfaction was 9%, 20.04% and 20.09%, respectively. Although in the univariate model, participants with short stature had significantly lower odds of LS [odds ratio (OR): 0.83, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.71–0.97] and good SRH (OR: 0.79, 95% CI: 0.68–0.92), in the multivariate model, only the association of short stature with good SRH remained statistically significant (OR: 0.82, 95% CI: 0.69–0.98).

Conclusions:

Results of the present study show that participants with short stature are at the greater risk of poor SRH and decreased LS in comparison with the subjects with normal height.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to all the participants and their parents who participated in this study and all organizations and the large team collaborating with this project. This study is part of the CASPIAN project as a nationwide survey with the corporation of Ministry of Health and Medical Education, Child Health Promotion Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Science, and Endocrinology and Metabolism Research Center of Tehran University of Medical Science.

  1. Author contributions: All the authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this submitted article and approved submission.

  2. Research funding: None declared.

  3. Employment or leadership: None declared.

  4. Honorarium: None declared.

  5. Competing interests: The funding organization(s) played no role in the study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report or in the decision to submit the report for publication.

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Received: 2016-5-28
Accepted: 2016-8-29
Published Online: 2016-10-18
Published in Print: 2016-11-1

©2016 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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