International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health | January 2017 | Vol 4 | Issue 1 Page 100 International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health Beevi NP et al. Int J Community Med Public Health. 2017 Jan;4(1):100-103 http://www.ijcmph.com pISSN 2394-6032 | eISSN 2394-6040 Original Research Article A study of adolescent health problems in a rural school in Thiruvanthapuram district, Kerala, India Nazeema Beevi P.*, Manju L., Anil Bindhu INTRODUCTION Adolescence is a phase separate from both early childhood and adulthood. It is a transitional period that requires special attention and protection. About 1 in 6 persons in the world is an adolescent, 1.2 billion people is 10-19 years. 1 Adolescence is generally considered as healthy period of life. Several important public health and social behaviours either start or peak during these years. Most of the problems are linked with life styles and social determinants. The behavioural patterns established during this developmental phase determine their current health status and the risk for developing some chronic diseases in later years. Promoting healthy practices during adolescence and taking steps to protect young people from health risk are critical for prevention of health problems in adulthood, ABSTRACT Background: Adolescence is a period of transition from childhood to adulthood. As adolescents are less vulnerable to diseases than the children, health problems specific to this group is given less importance. Their emotional problems are little noticed by the parents. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted in a rural government higher secondary school, Kilimanoor during November 2013. 10 th and 11 th class students (110 girls and 107 boys) were interviewed with the help of a pretested questionnaire. Results: A total of 217 students in the age group of 15-17 years were studied. Obesity was found in 2.8% of students. 45.6% falls under normal category and the rest 51.6% were in the underweight category. Hypertension was observed only in males i.e. 4.2%. 24.4% were in the pre hypertensive group. Systolic BP is correlated with BMI (r = 0.270, p- value <0.001). The prevalence of hypertension and pre hypertension in males are 8.4% and 30.8% respectively, whereas none of the females are hypertensive and 18.2% are in pre hypertensive group. Among the 106 girls, the prevalence of premenstrual symptoms is 83%. Among the 107 boys it was found that 13.0% students smoked cigarettes and 15.8% had consumed alcohol at this age. 11.2% students reported that they have both these habits. Conclusions: This study brought out the problems of malnutrition both under nutrition and over nutrition so also the prevalence of hypertension and pre hypertension among adolescents which are going to be serious health problems in future. Keywords: Adolescents, Hypertension, Obesity, Premenstrual symptoms Department of Community Medicine, Sree Gokulam Medical College & Research Foundation, Venjaramoodu, Kerala, India Received: 25 October 2016 Revised: 27 October 2016 Accepted: 29 November 2016 *Correspondence: Dr. Nazeema Beevi. P, E-mail: drnazeemabeevi@yahoo.co.uk 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: http://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2394-6040.ijcmph20164719