The data from the 2018 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) report, an initiative of Margarida Gaspar de Matos, a researcher at the University of Lisbon, and the Aventura Social team, was gathered in collaboration with the World Health Organisation as part of an inititiave in 44 countries.

Online surveys were carried out in 42 groups of schools, totalling 387 classes, with a complementary report on the Azores islands, totalling 6,997 young people in the 6th, 8th and 10th grades, aged on average 13.73 of which 51.7% were girls.

The report, presented in Lisbon on Wednesday, aims to study the lifestyles of school-age adolescents in their life contexts, in areas such as family support, school, friends, health, well-being, sleep, sexuality, food, leisure, sedentary lifestyle, substance consumption, violence and migrations.

According to the report, 90% of adolescents have not been bullied in the last two months at school and 81.2% said they have never been victims of this type of behaviour, a result that the report states “continues to reflect that more young people see themselves as victims than bullies.”

The report highlights the importance of “self-regulation and the promotion of other personal and socio-emotional competencies that increase the promotion of health/well-being, and prevent harmful health behaviours, namely the use of psychoactive substances.”

Although about one-third of adolescents consider themselves well informed in health matters, only 54.8% know that there are prescription medicines that may have undesirable effects and only 50.2% reported knowing how to check the expiration date in the packaging.