International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health | June 2021 | Vol 8 | Issue 6 Page 2637 International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health Shah SK et al. Int J Community Med Public Health. 2021 Jun;8(6):2637-2642 http://www.ijcmph.com pISSN 2394-6032 | eISSN 2394-6040 Original Research Article Health risk behaviour among adolescent students in higher secondary school of Kathmandu metropolitan city, Nepal Sanjaya Kumar Shah 1 *, Shree Laxmi Duwal 2 , Richa Shah 3 , Ramesh Bhatta 1 , Rajesh Karki 1 , Anil Chaudhary 1 INTRODUCTION Health-risk behaviours which are behaviours that contribute to the leading causes of mortality, morbidity, disability, and social problems among youth and adults, often are established during childhood and adolescence, extend into adulthood, and are interrelated. 1 In addition, they are considered as a major source of preventable premature deaths. 2 The youth risk behaviour surveillance systems measures six categories of priority health-risk behaviours among youth: a) behaviours that contribute to unintentional injuries and violence, b) sexual behaviours that contribute to unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV infection, c) alcohol and other drug use, d) tobacco use e) unhealthy dietary behaviors and f) inadequate physical activity plus obesity or sedentary life style. 1 ABSTRACT Background: Health-risk behaviours are those activities that contribute to the leading causes of mortality, morbidity, disability, and social problems among youth and adults, often are established during childhood and adolescence, extend into adulthood, and are interrelated. The objective of the study was to assess health risk behaviours and their influencing factors among adolescent students in higher secondary school of Kathmandu metropolitan city. Methods: The study was a school based cross-sectional quantitative type. The study was conducted in three government schools of Kathmandu metropolitan city, Nepal. The purposive sampling technique was applied to select total 250 respondents from grade 11 and 12. The self-administered questionnaire was used for the data collection. Results: Study shows that majority of respondents were between aged 17-20 years, 62.4% were female and 76.8% from Hindu religion. Out of the total respondents, 6.4% smoked cigarettes, 18.4% drank alcohol and 6.8% used drugs. Regarding Initiation risk behaviour, 25% first smoked, 32.6% first drank alcohol and 11.76% first used drug at age <14 years (pre-adolescence). The major influencing factor for involving health risk behaviours are peer pressure (70.58%) followed by their curiosity (29.42). Likewise, this study revealed highly association between risk behaviours of respondents and peer pressure. Conclusions: Despite the widespread of knowledge about negative effect of health risk behaviours, the prevalence is of smoking, drinking alcohol and drug use is higher. There is urge need of initiation and activities regarding health risk behaviour targeting to preadolescents and adolescents’ students. Keywords: Health risk behaviours, Adolescent students, Influencing factors 1 Department of Public Health, Yeti Health Science and Academy, Kathmandu, Nepal 2 Departments of Nursing, Yeti Health Science and Academy, Kathmandu, Nepal 3 Departments of Medicine, Nobel Medical College, Biratnagar, Nepal Received: 08 October 2020 Revised: 09 December 2020 Accepted: 23 April 2021 *Correspondence: Sanjaya Kumar Shah, E-mail: sanjayamph123@gmail.com Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2394-6040.ijcmph20211963