Relationships of youth risk behaviors with norm-consciousness and resilience among Japanese high school students

The purpose of this study was to examine the influences of norm-consciousness and resilience on the prevention of youth risk behaviors among Japanese high school students. Data of a national survey, Japan Youth Risk Behavior Survey 2011, was used for this analysis. The subjects were 9778 students (5027 males, 4751 females) in grades 10-12 in 102 schools randomly selected from among high schools throughout Japan. When multiple regression analysis was carried out using four subdomains of norm-consciousness and three subdomains of resilience as the independent variables and nine risk behaviors as the dependent variables, the subdomains of norm-consciousness showed significant positive standardized partial regression coefficients for eight risk behaviors for both males and females. In particular, “current alcohol use” and “ever had sexual intercourse” showed the largest standardized partial regression coefficients for the norm-consciousness in school, and “current cigarette use” showed that for the norm-consciousness in community. The subdomains of resilience showed significant positive standardized partial regression coefficients for five risk behaviors for males and for six those for females. The results of this study suggest that the norm-consciousness is an important protective factor to comprehensively prevent risk behaviors among Japanese adolescents. It is expected to be effective to enhance the norm-consciousness particularly in school and community. In addition, resilience should also be emphasized as a factor to prevent specific risk behaviors.