Health Behaviours, Well-being, and Resilience among Late Adolescents: A Cross-Sectional Study

Description

Devika M Lal¹ and Vinod Kumar S² (Division of Psychology and Cognitive Neurosciences, School of Life Sciences, JSS Academy of Higher, Education and Research, Mysuru, Karnataka¹ and School of Behavioural Sciences, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, Kerala²)

The present study examined the associations between health behaviours, well-being, and resilience among late adolescents. A total of 561 adolescents participated in this cross-sectional study. Health behaviours were assessed across five domains: physical health, risk behaviour, mental health, emotional health, and food and hygiene (Girija & Mathew, 2018). Well-being and resilience were assessed using the Adolescent Perceived Well-Being Scale and the Adolescent Perceived Resilience Scale, respectively, developed by Mailanchi and Kumar (2019). Descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation analyses were used to examine relationships among the study variables, followed by multivariate General Linear Model (GLM) analyses to evaluate the associations of health behaviour dimensions with well-being and resilience. Physical health, mental health, emotional health, and food and hygiene were positively associated with both well-being and resilience, whereas risk behaviour showed negative associations. Among the health behaviour dimensions, emotional and mental health demonstrated the strongest associations with both outcomes. These findings suggest that positive health behaviours are linked with better psychological functioning among late adolescents and underscore the importance of promoting healthy lifestyles and emotional well-being during this developmental period.