Quality of life - 10-17 year old girls

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1. Please provide information regarding quality of life now and in the future for 10-17 year old girls?

It depends how you define quality of life. If it is defined as bio-psycho-social wellness, these words could guide your research. Many of the quality of life studies focus on cohorts of this age group of girls who have some kind of sickness or problem e.g., eating disorder, or other problems. However, recently there has been a movement toward looking at positive quality of life in this cohort (For information regarding use of the Youth Quality Of Life (YQOL) instruments go to http://www.yqol.org).

However, other studies can also add to the information about quality of life. Juvenile girls give a person some indicators (often negative factors e.g., poor emotional control, delinquency, truancy, poor academic achievement, poor peer relations, family issues, poverty, etc.) that negatively impacting quality of life (see Article 2 attached). However, this is on average, as some girls from middle and upper class families also get into trouble with the law. These factors are often shown to carry into adulthood, through longitudinal studies that follow these girls into adulthood.

Another type of study to consider are studies on the positive adjustment issues that are related to ratings of high levels of quality of life on quality of life assessments on various dimensions (which often carry over into adulthood), such as social, economic, education status, emotional expressiveness (Journal Excerpt 1 below), psychological and socioeconomic status (income level) linked to adult wellness and adjustment or high quality of life ratings on a quality of life assessment. There are certain known predictors of both positive and negative outcomes related to either positive or negative quality of life indicators in adolescent girls, such as : education status, quality of peer relationships, being involved in sports, neighbourhood the child lives, degree of parental monitoring, parental education and income status. Some risk factors for 'poor?quality of life for both "nor and in the future?are: poor peer relations, no sports involvement, learning disabilities and/or mental disorder, such as ADHD or Conduct disorder--low academic performance, truancy, low socioeconomic status e.g., poverty, low parental monitoring, family problems-drug and alcohol abuse by the parents, poverty, abuse issues, neglect, etc,--living in an inner city neighbourhood where there is a high degree of drugs, alcohol and crime; joining gangs, poor family relations, early drug and alcohol abuse, and/or joining gangs. There has been a development of an adolescent quality of life measure (see Abstract 2 below).

For information about the future, longitudinal studies following adolescent girls into adulthood find that many of the adjustment issues follow into adulthood (both positive adjustment issues, as well as negative adjustment issues). Future outcomes of quality of life information-can be located through locating studies that focus on predictors of future adult adjustment that follow adolescent girls histories through longitudinal studies on same dimensions mentioned above to see if the ratings follow into adulthood, which often do, unless there has been a major intervention e.g. education status, quality of peer relationships, being involved in sports, neighbourhood the child lives, degree of parental monitoring, parental education and income status. Some risk factors for 'poor?quality of life for both "nor and in the future?are: poor peer relations, no sports involvement, learning disabilities and/or mental disorder, such as ADHD or Conduct disorder--low academic performance, truancy, low socioeconomic status e.g., poverty, low parental monitoring, family problems-drug and alcohol abuse by the parents, poverty, abuse issues, neglect, etc,--living in an inner city neighbourhood where there is a high degree of drugs, alcohol and crime; joining gangs, poor family relations, early drug and alcohol abuse, and/or joining gangs.

Some of the potential negative outcomes can be considered and guide research, such as the high prevalence of eating disorders in this age group, with risk factors of peer pressure, thin body preoccupation and social pressure-"are important risk ...