Observation of Social Adaptation and Status in Adolescents According to the Age Groups

Sosyal Eğilimlerin Gözlenmesi Amaç: döneminde fiziksel, davranışsal değişimler meydana gelmektedir. çalışmanın amacı 11-20 yaş arası adölesanların sosyal eğilimlerini, Fatih Sosyal Eğilimler Ölçeği ile değerlendirmektir. Gereç Yöntem: Fatih Sosyal Eğilimler Ölçeği; adölesanların eğilimleriyle ilişkli 26 soruyu içeren 6 faktörden oluş-maktadır. Çalışmaya Fatih Sosyal Eğilimler Ölçeği’indeki soruları cevaplayarak tamamlayan 585 adölesan dahil edildi. Anketler değerlendirildikten sonra faktör skorlarının genel ortalaması ile ölçeğin total skoru hesaplandı. Katılımcıların yaş gruplarına göre özelliklerinin ve niteliklerin tanımlayıcı analizleri yapıldı. Sonuçlar: 345/585 (%58,9) katılımcının düzenli kitap okuma alışkanlığı mevcuttu. Çalışmada düzenli kitap okumanın sosyal uyumu geliştirdiği, kitap okuyanların aile Abstract Observation of Social Adaptation and Status in Adolescents According to the Age Groups Aim: Physical, behavioural changes occur in the adolescence period of life. The aim of this study was to determine the social trends in adolescents 11-20 years of age by using “Fatih Social Trends Scale for 11-20 Age Version”. Material and Methods: Fatih Social Trends Scale (FSTS) consists of 6 factors include 26 questions. 585 adolescent participants completed FSTS questionnaire. Overall average of factor’s scores and total score of scale were calculated. Descriptive analysis of characteristics and features of participants were performed according to age groups. Results: 345/585 (58,9%) participants had habit of regular book reading. Regular bookreading is associated with enhanced social cohesion, better school performance, family relationships, and life goals avoidance drug use and violence. Also findings of this study indicated that social cohesion correlated with gender (269 girls and 316 boys); avoidance of violence and better school performance is correlated with participants age groups ((192/585 (32,8%) were in the 11-14 age group, 199/585 (34%) in the 15-17 age group, and 194/585 (33,2%) in the 18-20 age group). Family relationships correlated with regular exercise (210/585 (35,8%). Conclusion: The adolescent period is an important period that determines role of the individual in society and there are many factors affecting this period. FSTS is utilizable for investigating effect of descriptives features on the social trends. Importance of regular book reading and regular exercise on the adolescent period were shown in this study. These findings should be useful in improving the adolescent period.


INTRODUCTION
There are four periods of life; childhood, adolescence/ youth, adulthood and old age. Adolescence period has been described as a difficult process to follow biologically, psychologically and socially; it contains many changes in it. Adolescence is neither child nor adult.
Adolescence period is divided into three periods which are early, middle and late periods.
(1) Early adolescence period age [11][12][13][14] (2) Middle adolescence period age [15][16][17] (3) Late adolescence period age [18][19][20][21] Significant physiological changes that affect the adolescence happen through this period. Adolescents try to accomplish many developmental processes in order to keep up with the change in this period. The most important developmental processes of this period are shaping the identity and being recognized as an individual (1).
Adolescence is a period between childhood and adulthood. Adolescence period starts after early pre-adolescence and lasts until twenties. Physical development continues in this period, young person gets mentally matured and gets ready for adulthood both emotionally and socially. While the changes happen, adolescent forces himself/herself to evaluate and organize his/her childhood skills, abilities. Adolescent try to identificate a new, consistent structure called "identity". Identity is an objective sensation of the sameness and consistency which go stronger (1). Adolescence is the time that identity comes out. Erikson explained the reason of identity coming out during as maturing of the mind. Adolescent can have ideas about who he/she is and what might he/she become in future. Adolescent is aware that mental, physical and social environment direct him to adulthood, and he/she starts looking for an identity (2). Actually, this period that identity comes out is the most difficult period of human developmental phases. For these reasons, all those researches and descriptions aim to make this period more understandable.
Character of person develops in the process of an adolescent. In the adolescence period, young person gains "life abilities" such as communicative and also with having sympathy, sensibility, self-control (3,4). Adolescent improves social cohesion which can be described as one's ability to build up good relationships with himself/herself and people around him/her (5). Social adaptation is a dynamic process which is supported by one's reactions to its environment (6). On the other hand, adaptation shouldn't be thought as a reaction, it is a behaviour expected by society.
Adolescent has a biological, psychological and social life which are inside each other and constantly in interaction. Consequently, there are many factors that affect trends and life of adolescent and make up their behavior. The aim of this study was to determine the social trends and to investigate the factors that affect these trends in adolescents 11-20 years of age by using"Fatih Social Trends Scale for 11-20 Age Version".

MATERIALS AND METHODS
An observational, analytic and prospective study was applied with a questionnaire to the participants who are between 11-20 ages. Only those adolescents with informed written consent from their parents were enrolled for the study. This study was approved by the Ethic Committee of Ankara Education and Research hospital (permit number:433/3699).
The scale, which had previously been studied for reliability and effectiveness, consists of 6 factors include 26 questions related to social trends of adolescents. The general reliability of the scale value is 0,794 on Cronbach's Alfa, when you take the corrected value (corrected 0,811) it reveals to be a "Highly" reliable scale (18). The factors of the scale are; Social Cohesion (SC), Tendency to Avoidance Drug (AD), Tendency to Avoidance Violence (AV), School Performance (SP), Family Relationships (FR), Life Goals (LG). (Supp 1) The participants scores based on the "Fatih Social Trends Scale" are calculated. This scale uses six factors with five Likert-type answers (I. Strongly Disagree; II. Disagree; III. Undecided; IV. Agree; and V. Strongly Agree). The sentences that mean the opposite of a factor was scored by deducting 6. (Reverse Scoring) The data were evaluated with Statistical Package Program for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 16.0. First, the total score of the scale was calculated with general average of factor scores. Factors effects on each other were analyzed with Factorial Anova Test. Then distribution of the properties such as age of the study group were created with descriptive analyzation. (number, percentage, average, etc.). In the next level comparison of two independent groups were made with Mann-Whitney-U Groups Test. A P value of 0.05 was used to indicate statistical significance.
When we analyzed these factors, we found following results ( Table 2);

Tendency to Avoidance Drug
When we analyze the factors that can affect "tendency to avoidance drug" (AD), regular reading seemed to be effective on AD factor. Participants who read regularly had higher average points for AD factor than participants who don't read (4,55 ± 0,67; 4,28 ± 0,86 p<0,01).

Life Goals
Regular book reading seemed to be effective on "life goals" (LG). Average points for LG factor was higher in participants who read regularly than participants who do not read (4,24 ± 0,83; 3,93± 0,94; p<0,01).
Social tendency scale was used for investigating variant factors and independent factors that could affect these variant factors in different age groups. "Regular book reading" is found effective to improve all factors of study. Furthermore are found effective "gender" on "social cohesion", "age" on "tendency to avoidance violence" and "school performance", "regular exercise" on "family relationships".

DISCUSSION
In previous researches, it is seen that girls read more books than boys (7-9). Our study supports those findings. Also," when we investigated characteristics of participants separately, "regular book reading" and "gender" were effective on "social cohesion" factors In our study, we could not detect any significant difference between "social cohesion" and "regular exercise". However, according to the results of research that investigates the Social Cohesion in adolescents, there was a statistically significant benefit for the adolescents who exercise (10).
When the participants were compared according to drug use, no drug user had a higher social activity and regular book reading rate. It was seen in prior studies that no drug users spend their time by regular book reading and had hobbies like painting, music, participated in those hobbies courses. (11)(12)(13)(14). Our study also supports all those studies. "Tendency to avoidance drug" rate was higher in the participants who read book. (4,55 ± 0,67; 4,28 ± 0,86; p<0,001).
In this study, it was found that "regular book reading" increases the factor average of "tendency to avoidance violence" (3,70 ± 0,91; 3,32 ± 0,91; p<0,001). We could not encounter other studies that represent the relation between the tendency to violence and regular book reading.
Negative correlation was found in a study evaluating the relationship between age of adolescent and school performance. In the same study, the school performance of the adolescent was not affected by variances like gender (15). According to this, while the age progresses school performance decreases. In our study, "School Performance" is the highest in 11-14 age group (4,05 ± 0,73). Also supporting the same study, there was no statistically significance between the gender and average scores of "school performance" in our study. There are other studies with similar results related to gender and school performance in the literature (16).
In our study, the adolescents who have high factor averages of "school performance", have high rates of "regular book reading". The reason for this could be reading lecture books or mental performance might be enhanced with reading regularly. For example, one study determined that exam books are preferred (17). Obviously, reading is essential for school success. Therefore, reading habits should be acquired. The most important factor to determine strength of the habit is initiating of the habit in the early ages. Because of this reason two organizations have an important role in acquiring reading habit. The first one is family, and the second is education institutes that include the libraries (18).
There are studies showing that gender has an effect on reading habits. In these studies, it was seen that the reading rates of females are more than males (19)(20). There are similar findings in our study. Two hundred twenty-one (69,9%), of female participants and 124 (46%) male participants were regular reader.
In our study, factor analysis shows that adolescents who read books regularly have higher factor averages of "life goals" (4.24 ± 0.83, 3.93 ± 0.94, p<0.001 MWU). We can explain this situation with t lecture books reading. However, questions about book types were not asked. If lecture books were read more by participants who answered "I read books regularly", participants might be more successful people on their lectures and that might be effective on life goals. In fact, the people who read lot evaluate and manage better their brain. This situation is more effective to determine life goals, therefore they might be the people who look to future more hopefully.
Family physician monitors and treats all members of the family without discrimination of age and gender. It is critical to understand adolescents for a family physician. Because, family physician gives decisions and organizes the treatments after completely examines the patients in a social, cultural, familial holism. This study showed that reading is important for every part of life. Therefore, if we improve habit of reading with various methods in adolescents, It is possible to raise generations who are more social, avoiding substance, violence, more effective in deter-mining their aims, more useful for their nation and state, able to set better communications with their family. It is seen that the girls read more than boys in the studies. There is a need for new studies to how might encourage the boys to read.
The age range is found effective on the factor of "School Performance". School performance decreased as the age increase in this study. Therefore, adolescents may need support for school performances with age increases. Educators and families can take precautions for this situation.
"Regular Exercise" is also found effective in "Family Relationships" factor averages. New studies are needed to present this more clearly, In conclusion, in the light of the of these study and other studies, taking account of the age groups, adolescents should be encouraged to read regularly and exercise regularly. The patience which is the keystone in communicating with adolescents has an important contribution on improving personality of adolescents. The new studies that are done for understanding the adolescents will always expand our horizons and understanding adolescents will be a step for them to understand adults.

A. Social Cohesion
13) Everyone in society should be in peace. 19) Everyone in society should respect each other. 23) A peaceful social structure is an important goal for a country.