Risk Factors of Health Risk Behaviors in Intermediate Students

Relationship of parental bonding, college connectedness, emotional intelligence, and academic stress with health risk behaviors was examined in 11 and 12 grade science and humanities group students (N = 225) with age range of 16 to 19 years. Mediating role of emotional intelligence, college connectedness, and academic stress was also tested for the relationship of parental care and control with health risk behaviors in students. Along with demographic information, data were collected on Urdu versions of Parental Bonding Instrument (Pedersen, 1994), College Connectedness Scale (Resnick et al., 1997), Educational Stress Scale for Adolescents (Sun, Dunne, Hou, Xu, 2011), Emotional Intelligence Scale (Batool Khalid, 2009), and Health Risk Behaviors Questionnaire (Anwar, 2012). Results reveal that parental care was positively related to emotional intelligence and negatively related to health risk behaviors. Parental control was positively related to academic stress and health risk behaviors. Emotional intelligence was negatively related to academic stress and health risk behaviors; and academic stress was positively related to health risk behaviors. Moreover, emotional intelligence mediated between parental care, academic stress, and health risk behaviors. Further, academic stress mediated between college connectedness and health risk behaviors. Findings have important implications for parental training programs to focus on appropriate parenting patterns of more care and less control.