Trends in life satisfaction in European and North-American adolescents from 2002 to 2010 in over 30 countries

BACKGROUND: Life satisfaction (LS) is an indicator which is widely used for assessing the perception of a child's feeling about his life.

METHODS: LS is assessed in Health Behaviour in School-aged Children via the Cantril ladder with 10 steps indicating the worst and best possible life. This range of values (0-10) was dichotomized into 'low' (0-5) vs. 'high' (6-10). Countries, age groups and genders were compared based on the odds ratio (OR) of declaring a higher LS in 2010 with respect to 2002.

RESULTS: Analyzing the difference between 2002 and 2010, six countries from Western Europe show decreasing LS: Austria, Canada, Switzerland, Denmark, Finland and Greenland. In contrast, a group of Eastern European Countries, that is, Estonia, Croatia, Lithuania, Latvia, Russia and Ukraine, show a significant increase in LS. Data on gender and age differences confirm the lower rating of LS in girls and a decreasing rating with age.

CONCLUSION: The LS scale appears to be a tool capable of discriminating the level of wellbeing of adolescent population among countries.