Living With a Chronic Condition and Risk Behaviors

Purpose: To assess whether living with a chronic condition (CC) is associated with risk behaviors among youths. Methods: Data were drawn from the baseline wave (2014-15; N¼5179) of the GenerationFRee survey, a longitudinal study among post-mandatory youths aged 15-24 years in Fribourg, Switzerland. Students were divided into three groups depending on whether they reported having a CC or not: healthy controls (no CC: N¼4529; 46.2% females), CC without limitation (CCWL: N¼536; 52.6% females) and CC limiting daily activities (CCLDA: N¼114; 58.9% females). At the bivariate level groups were compared on sociodemographic data and six risk behaviors (current smoking; current (at least once in the past 30 days) alcohol misuse, cannabis use and use of other illegal drugs; violent behavior and antisocial behavior at least once in the past 12 months). In a second step, a multinomial logistic regression was conducted including all variables significant at the .05 level. Results are given as Relative Risk Ratios (RRR) with 95% confidence intervals.