Attention capacity in European adolescents : role of different health-related factors : the HELENA study

We compared the level of attention capacity between adolescents from the center and south of Europe. The study included 627 European adolescents (54% girls), aged 12.5–17.5 years, who participated in the HELENA Study. The d2 Test of Attention was administered to assess attention capacity. The main results showed that adolescents from the south of Europe had significantly higher score in attention capacity compared with adolescents from central Europe (score + 8.1; 95%CI, 2.44–13.61) after adjustment for age, sex, socioeconomic indicators, body mass index, cardiorespiratory fitness and diet quality index (p = 0.012).