Knowledge and Attitude towards Safety Behavior among Adolescents
Abstract
Adolescent is the period of rapid growth and development in which many developmental changes take place more rapidly, it often starts from age of 13 years and extends up to 19 years of age. Adolescents are involved in many risk-taking activities, some of the most common risky activities include substance abuse, cigarette smoking, preventable injury, and violence, including self-harm. The consequences of these high-risk activities have a huge impact on the physical and psychological well-being of adolescents. This risky behavior even causes a detrimental effect on the life of an adolescent, at the same time; these effects are preventable by adopting proper safety behavior.
Safety behaviors are the group of acts one should be aware of to safeguard themselves from the ill effects of risky activities, safety behavior includes physical safety, social safety, psychological safety, moral safety, and sexual safety. This safety behavior can be imparted to an adolescent only through proper education and awareness programs, with this idea this study was taken to assess the knowledge and attitude towards Safety behaviors among adolescents in selected schools, in Chennai. The objectives of the study was, to assess the level of knowledge on safety behaviour among adolescents, to assess the attitude towards safety behaviour among adolescents, to associate the level of Knowledge and attitude towards Safety behaviour with the selected demographic variables.
The research approach method was quantitative. The study was conducted in Jeppiar Matric Higher Secondary School, Chennai. Non probability purposive sampling method was used to collect the study subject. Data was collected from 60 School students. Structured questionnaire was used to assess the knowledge and attitude regarding safety behaviour, and results were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics.
Frequency and percentage distribution of level of knowledge regarding safety behaviour in 60 adolescents in which 19 (32%) of the adolescents had adequate knowledge, 17 (28%) had moderately adequate knowledge and 24 (40%) of the adolescents had inadequate knowledge. Frequency and percentage distribution of level of attitude regarding safety behaviour of 60 adolescents in which 16 (27%) of adolescents had most favourable attitude, 27 (45%) of adolescents had moderately favourable attitude, and 17 (28%) of adolescents had unfavorable attitude regarding safety behaviour. It was concluded that teaching program is essential among students to increase knowledge and attitude regarding safety behaviour among adolescents.
