The prevalence rate of risky behaviors and its relationship to religious orientations among students (boy and girl) in Shaahed and public schools
The prevalence of risky behaviors, especially amongst adolescents and youth, has been of the serious health threats in recent years which, due to rapid social change, have been taken into consideration on behalf of health agencies, law enforcement and social policymakers as one of the most important problems in the society. The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of risky behaviors and its relationship to religious orientations among students (boy and girls) in Shaahed and public schools. To this end and using a multi-stage cluster sampling and proportional to population size, 450 students were chosen for this study. To measure the variables, Iranian Adolescents Risk-taking Survey (IARS) and Stark Gluck Religiosity Test were used, respectively. For data analysis, correlation tests, T-test, chi square, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Scheffe's test were used. The results showed that the prevalence of risky behaviors in all students was 5.4 percent (boys 6.3 percent, girls 4.51 percent). Also, there was a significant difference in mean scores of risky behaviors among students in public schools and Shaahed students enrolled in public schools. Besides, there appeared a significant negative relation between religious orientations (p<0.01) and risky behaviors among students in public and Shaahed schools. Having analyzed the subsidiary hypotheses, it was
revealed that there was a significant positive relationship among age (p<0.05) and field of study (p<0.01) with risky behaviors in students of public schools. The result of this research revealed the need for greater attention, with greater emphasis on the practical aspect of it, to the importance of religious orientations in prevention of infection with risky behaviors among students.
