Are there short cuts to pubertal assessments? Self-reported and assessed group differences in pubertal development in African adolescents
OUTPUT TYPE: Journal Article
PUBLICATION YEAR: 2008
TITLE AUTHOR(S): S.A.Norris, L.M.Richter
KEYWORDS: ADOLESCENTS, AFRICAN PEOPLE, PUBERTY, YOUTH, YOUTH DEVELOPMENT
Print: HSRC Library: shelf number 5092
HANDLE: 20.500.11910/5590
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11910/5590
If you would like to obtain a copy of this Research Output, please contact Hanlie Baudin at researchoutputs@hsrc.ac.za.
Abstract
The purpose of this article is the self-rating of pubertal development using the Pubertal Development Scale (PDS) as is recommended as a noninvasive assessment of puberty in large community-based surveys of adolescent development and behavior. The objective of this study was to assess the reliability of the PDS for the first time among urban, Black South African youth. The concordance between adolescents' self-assessment of sexual maturation using the PDS and those of an expert rating by a trained health professional using the Sexual Maturation Scale (SMS) were determined in a group (182; 49% female) of Black South African youth aged between 10 and 18 years recruited from schools in Soweto, South Africa. Furthermore, the concordance between adolescents' self-assessment of puberty using the PDS and a previously validated self-assessment technique using SMS was also determined in a large group (1388; 53% female) of young adolescents aged 13 years old participating in a birth cohort from Soweto-Johannesburg. The convergent validity of PDS proved to be poor with several PDS items (facial hair, skin change, and growth) proving unreliable both within the school survey across the different age groups when compared to SMS (kappa coefficient of 0.34 for females and undetermined for males), as well as, within the cohort of 13-year-olds (kappa coefficient of 0.16 for females and 0.19 for males). The results suggest that there may be as yet undocumented differences in pubertal manifestations and awareness of these manifestations, especially facial hair and skin change (acne), among urban, Black South African youth that make the PDS self-assessment less reliable as a pubertal assessment tool in multiethnic community-based research.-
Related Research Outputs:
- Where we're at & where we're going: young people in South Africa in 2005
- The status of youth report 2003: young people in South Africa
- Youth violence prevention and peace education programmes in South Africa: a preliminary investigation of programme design and evaluation practices
- Adolescence and youth: the challenge of violence in post-conflict South Africa
- Birth to twenty
- Status of youth report in South Africa
- Injury-related behaviour among South African high-school students at six sites
- Youth policy initiative: integrating the approach to youth development
- Building protective factors to offset sexually risky behaviors among black South African youth: a randomized control trial
- Substance use and sexual behaviour among African adolescents in the North West province of South Africa
- Editorial
- Youth in Africa: participation and protection
- Alcohol, movies and adolescents
- South African national HIV prevalence, incidence, behaviour and communication survey, 2008: a turning tide among teenagers?
- Prevalence and social correlates of injury among in-school adolescents in Botswana
- Growing up in the new South Africa: childhood and adolescence in post-apartheid Cape Town
- Lead exposure is associated with a delay in the onset of puberty in South African adolescent females: findings from the Birth to Twenty cohort
- Young drivers, personality & risky driving behaviour
- Environmental lead exposure and socio-behavioural adjustment in the early teens: the birth to twenty cohort
- Adolescence