Margarida Gaspar de Matos

University of Lisbon | UL · Instituto de Saude Ambiental & Aventura Social

A considerable amount of literature demonstrates an association between physical activity (PA) and health. However, some studies also suggest an association between PA and health compromising behaviors. The purpose of this study is to determine the behaviors that can have a positive or negative association with PA in a nationally representative sam...

There is a recent decline in HIV in a significant number of countries due to the adoption of preventive sexual behaviors, which demonstrates that HIV reduction is possible. The goal of this research was to deepen knowledge of preventive sexual behavior in adolescents, including knowledge and attitudes about HIV/AIDS, and assessing whether they chan...

The aim of this study was to understand what children’s and adolescents’ worries are and the strategies used to face them. Two studies were carried out. Study one had a sample of 1,207 Portuguese children and adolescents, 48.4% boys, attending 5th to 9th grades, mean age 12.5, participated in a first approach to children and adolescents’ theories a...

Introdução: As úlceras por pressão (UPP) são dos eventos adversos mais frequentes em contexto hospitalar, com elevados custos de saúde (diretos e indiretos). Serão apresentadas as recomendações que emergiram dos estudos realizados no projeto de doutoramento financiado com bolsa de doutoramento da Universidade de Lisboa “Educação para Saúde na Preve...

The quality of the school environment is associated with greater school involvement and academic success and improved levels of well-being/quality of life. In this sense, this study intends to explore the relationship between the quality of life of Portuguese adolescents and school. 8215 adolescents participated in this study, 52.7% of which were f...

The present study intends to assess how chronic health conditions are being evaluated in general health questionnaires aimed at adolescents. A review of questionnaires that contain questions about different domains of the adolescents' lives and about chronic disease and/or disability was performed. Different terminologies regarding the domain of ch...

Introdução: A vulnerabilidade em saúde de adolescentes em região de fronteira tem recebido destaque em pesquisas na área de educação e saúde pública, auxiliando na identificação e influências na alteração de comportamentos e relacionamentos nessa faixa etária, campo que as habilidades sociais tem demonstrado evidências no enfrentamento dessa proble...

In an unprecedented scenario, much of the research and interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic, which focused on young people, found themselves suspended. (1) Background: The goals of this project were to investigate (Study 1) social participation and positive development among young people in Cascais, Portugal, and to investigate (Study 2-a cas...

Variables associated with lifestyle can constitute either risk or protective factors for the development and progression of chronic conditions (CC). This study intends to explore the differences between adolescents with and without CC and between adolescents whose school participation is affected/not affected by the existing CC with regard to varia...

Introdução: A adolescência é uma fase de desenvolvimento humano repleta de rápidas mudanças individuais, com incertezas e desafios para os próprios e, para terceiros. O Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) é um estudo colaborativo da Organização Mundial de Saúde que decorre a cada 4 anos. Em Portugal, é realizado há 20 anos (1998 – 2018)...

Rationale The associations between COVID-19 cases/deaths levels and subsequent uptake of protective behaviors may reflect cognitive and behavioral responses to threat-relevant information. Objective Applying protection motivation theory (PMT) this study explored whether the number of total COVID-19 cases/deaths and general anxiety were associated...

The research protocol of the project “Positive Youth Development in Spanish Undergraduates: Analysis of Developmental Assets related to Health, Psychological Wellbeing and Social Contribution” (FEDER Andalusia Program 2014-2020, UHU-1259711) is presented. The general aim of this project was to analyze to what extent the dimensions of positive youth...

Scarcely explored, intergenerational dialogue may support the re-encounter between generations. Background: Focused on intergenerational sharing and on the identification of differences between generations, the project #GenerationsWithAVoice aims to identify generational inequalities, with the aim of promoting awareness of intergenerational chall...

In the last 2 years, the COVID-19 pandemic has spread all over the world, forcing the closure of universities, among other unusual measures in recent history. (1) Background: This work is based on the study HOUSE-ULisbon, a survey carried out during the second confinement (March–May 2021) in Portugal with the collaboration of all the Faculties of t...

Students with chronic conditions (CC) tend to experience several barriers in terms of their school participation and performance. Therefore, the present study aims to explore the factors related to the time of diagnosis of CC (recent/non-recent), the barriers to participation and academic success (health condition, people’s attitude towards CC and...

The use of images is highly frequent in science and health communication, and it is usually considered to be very effective to transmit health messages. Although not so much attention has been paid to measuring the effects of using visual elements in public health communication, images can indeed contribute to increase effectiveness in promoting ad...

Abstract The high prevalence of depressive disorders is documented in different countries and ethnic groups, significantly higher in women than in men and currently the leading cause of illness-related disability in the female population. This study examines how interpersonal problems, resilience, self-regulation and depression are related to each...

Adherence to COVID-19 vaccine is determined by several cognitive and emotional determinants. Portuguese population has remarkable trust level on vaccines, also explained by a highly favorable public perception of the quality of healthcare public services. However, the process of development, testing and implementation of COVID-19 vaccines (some of...

Behavioral activation requires both cognitive and emotional processes. Fast and automatic decisions are highly dependent of emotional stata and, therefore, emotion activation is widely used in marketing initiatives. Health promotion campaigns traditionally opted by using threatening messages, aiming to raise awareness of health risks and to promote...

Marco teórico: El envejecimiento ha sido una fuente creciente de mayores oportunidades generadas por la longevidad, pero también una fuente creciente de preocupación, particularmente con respecto a la salud mental y el bienestar de las personas mayores. Como tal, es muy importante tener una mejor comprensión de la relación entre los factores psicos...

Objectives The consequences of long-lasting restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic have become a topical question in the latest research. The present study aims to analyze longitudinal changes in adolescents’ social emotional skills, resilience, and behavioral problems. Moreover, the study addresses the impact of adolescents’ social emotiona...

The interest surrounding consumer food waste behavior has been increasing in the academia and civil society, with academic research focusing on understanding its causes and testing interventions to reduce it. This paper aims to understand how to influence consumer food waste behavior with interventions and what further research is needed. For this...

Food literacy is a combination of functional, critical, and relational skills that pave the way for navigating the food system properly, taking personally and contextually available resources into account. The aim was to validate the Spanish version of the self-perceived food literacy scale in university students to explore the factorial structure...

Analisar a associação entre desenvoltura social, regulação parental e atividade física em adolescentes. Estudo de corte realizado com 722 adolescentes de escolas públicas de Foz do Iguaçu. Os dados foram recolhidos por questionários. A associação da desenvoltura social com a regulação parental e a atividade física foram analisados no grupo geral e...

Background: In times of unprecedented infectious disease threats, it is essential to understand how to increase individual protective behaviors and support for collective measures. The present study therefore examines factors associated with individual and collective pathways. Methods: Data was collected via an online survey from 4,483 participants...

Abstract Background The COVID-19 pandemic has had a disproportionately hard impact on refugees and other migrants who are often exposed to the virus with limited means to protect themselves. We tested the hypothesis that during the COVID-19 pandemic, refugees and other migrants have suffered a negative impact on mental health and have been unjustly...

Background Depression is the most prevalent mental disorder. In the treatment of depressive symptoms, patients' religious practices and beliefs are often not considered. We carried out a systematic review and meta-analysis of RCTs to analyse the effect of religious interventions on depression. Methods A literature screening was performed on August...

The main objective of this study is to understand and characterize the adoption of an ecological perspective and the physical, psychological, social, and contextual health factors that may influence the adjustment to and mental health experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study included 5479 participants, of which 3710 were female (67.7%),...

During COVID-19 pandemic, the use of internet in adolescent population has increased. A growing research interest has been developed about the consequences of internet use for adolescent development. Despite most studies have examine the impact of internet use in some indicators of psychological maladjustment, few studies have addressed the detrime...

The healthy development of children and young people is strongly associated with the relationship that they establish with parents and the functioning of their family as a whole, with a special focus on the affective relationship between parents and children. One aspect that has more influence on the well-being and quality of life of children is th...

Objectives: Relationships with supportive adults during adolescence may be a protective factor that lowers the risks associated with bullying. The current study aimed to examine the moderating role of supportive adults in the associations between bullying involvement (in-person and cyber) and mental health problems (psychological symptoms and low l...

Background: The UN has recognised well-being as a main goal of The Global Strategy for Women's, Children's and Adolescents' Health (2016-2030). Objective: The aim was to identify the areas of mental health that are the most significant to teenagers. Material and methods: The mixed-method approach was applied. Quantitative research included ado...

Sexual activity usually begins during adolescence, and national and international investigations suggest that age at first intercourse and condom use are crucial determinants of sexual health. This study analyzed trends in sexual behavior among adolescents from 2018 to 2021 in the educational region of northern Portugal. The sample consists of 2773...

Healthy workplaces contribute to the well-being, health and performance of workers and organizations. This study aims at building and validating an ecological instrument for the assessment of healthy workplaces based on the Healthy Workplaces conceptual model proposed by the World Health Organization (Burton, 2010). After a complex and robust const...

To analyze the association between social skills and sexual health in adolescents from a border region. A cross-sectional study carried out with 722 adolescents (328 boys, 394 girls), students from public schools in Foz do Iguaçu in 2016, with an average age of 16 years. Questionnaires were used for data collection. The association of social skills...

The “Health behavior change during COVID-19 pandemic: the focus on handwashing” project aimed to 1) analyze whether the guidelines advised by the WHO on hand washing during the COVID-19 pandemic were followed, 2) its cognitive predictors (perceived self-efficacy of hand washing, risk perception, outcome expectation, intention, planning and action c...

Active commuting to and from school can be an important contribution to improving health in adolescents. This study aimed to analyze the influence of multilevel variables of the ecological model in the active commuting of a representative sample of Portuguese adolescents. The 2018 Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children questionnaire was applied t...

Objective: This study investigates possible relationships between psychological flexibility and measures of anxiety, depression and mindfulness with compassion fatigue in the population of healthcare professionals during the pandemic COVID-19. Methods: The study, crosssectional and correlational, consisted of 117 health professionals from Portugal,...

The influence that social factors (relationship with teachers, peers and family support), future expectations, physical and psychological symptoms exert on the adolescents’ tobacco and alcohol consumption is analyzed, and the differences between users and non‐users are analyzed as well. This work is part of the HBSC study. The results show that sub...

Background: A healthy and supportive family environment leads to more positive results regarding adolescents' development. The main objective of this study was to explore and analyze the relationship between adolescents' quality of life (QoL) and their family environment/relationship. Method: The sample was collected as part of the Health Behavi...

Around the beginning of the 2021 new year, Europe’s COVID-19 third wave led many leaders to implement a new lockdown period, with the teaching–learning system returning to the online method once more. The present study aimed to understand the health consequences for adolescents and young adults (AYA) during the third wave’s lockdown. This mixed-met...

This study intends to analyze the influence that the health condition (with/without chronic condition (CC) and CC that affect/does not affect the school participation), the factors related to the school context (liking school, perception of school success, difficulties at school, relationship with peers and teachers) and the physical and psychologi...

Aim The aim of this work is to identify the pressure ulcer risk profiles of hospitalized patients with reference to Braden Scale subscales. Methods A total of 2996 hospitalized Portuguese participants were screened using the Braden Scale. A hierarchical and nonhierarchical cluster analysis was conducted, with ethical approval. Results Five risk p...

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Objective: what youth found most difficult during COVID-19, their coping strategies and expectations regarding the future. Method: multi-method with 318 participants (16-24 years; M = 19.07, SD = 2.66), mostly girls (69.5%), students (78.5%) in secondary school or equivalent (52.8%) or higher (41.7%). Results: Overall, a negative perspective was hi...

Resumo O presente trabalho tem como objetivo principal a compreensão dos sintomas depressivos na adolescên-cia durante a pandemia COVID-19 numa perspetiva bi-opsicossocial. Participaram no estudo 826 adolescen-tes residentes na área geográfica da Câmara Municipal de Famalicão (Portugal). Os resultados revelaram que dos adolescentes em estudo, 30,7...

Nas últimas décadas tem-se verificado um interesse crescente e generalizado pelo conceito de flexibilidade psicológica e TCC subjacente. A literatura, a par dos estudos desenvolvidos pela Aventura Social, tem vindo a referir a importância do desenvolvimento de competências de autorregulação e do suporte social como fatores determinantes de um desen...

The promotion of physical distancing is a highly effective way of preventing the interpersonal transmission of pathogenic agents, including SARS-CoV-2. However, the protection of physical health through physical distance should not promote social distancing, which is a relevant disrupter of human subjective and psychological well-being. Interperson...

Background: It is widely accepted that adversities during development may impact depression in adulthood, but its relations with current depression triggers are unclear. The present research aimed to explore the association between self-reported adverse childhood and adolescent experiences with self-reported depressive triggers, according to interp...

Background: It is widely accepted that adversities during development may impact depression in adulthood, but its relations with current depression triggers are unclear. The present research aimed to explore the association between self-reported adverse childhood and adolescent experiences with self-reported depressive triggers, according to interp...

Health promotion is defined as the process of enabling people to increase control over and to enhance their health. It focuses on individual behaviors towards a wide range of interventions on social and environmental determinants of health and other health related aspects of life (WHO, 2015; 2017). Thus, health promotion implies the need to promote...

Practicing sexual intercourse (SI) under the influence of alcohol or drugs has been identified as an unhealthy sexual behaviour. The sample consisted of 5695 adolescents, of which 46.1% were males, with a mean age of 15 years old. The measures consisted of asking the adolescent if he or she had ever had SI, age of 1st SI, condom use at last SI, SI...

Introduction: As a non-priority group for SARS-CoV-2 vaccination, adolescents and young adults (AYA) also deserve the opportunity to participate in a topic that affects them. Aim: AYAs’ knowledge, advantages, fears and opinions related to vaccination are presented. Method: 558 participants aged 16-24 years (M = 19.34 years, SD = 2.266), mostly girl...

Background Patterns of protective health behaviors, such as handwashing and sanitizing during the COVID-19 pandemic, may be predicted by macro-level variables, such as regulations specified by public health policies. Health behavior patterns may also be predicted by micro-level variables, such as self-regulatory cognitions specified by health behav...

Resumo: O estudo pretende analisar a qualidade de vida, os desafios, as ameaças e a saúde dos migrantes/refugiados residentes em Portugal durante a pandemia da COVID-19 em 2020/2021. Trata-se de um estudo descritivo e transversal. Participaram 330 migrantes/refugiados residentes em Portugal, com uma média de idade de 35,25±11,21 anos, dos quais 62%...

Resumo: Este trabalho pretende analisar os cidadãos que viviam em Portugal durante a pandemia COVID-19 2020/2021, a saúde subjetiva, o risco percebido e a perceção relacionada com o surto, a motivação para a proteção e adoção de comportamentos preventivos, e suas expetativas de futuro. Foram incluídos 225 indivíduos, 81,3% do sexo feminino (18-83 a...

To analyze the association between self-control, consumption indicators and risk factors in the behavior of adolescents. Cross-sectional cohort study, with probabilistic sample by clusters and simple random. 722 teenagers were interviewed. The relationship of self-control with the use of tobacco, alcohol and cannabis, feeling of loneliness, sexual...

Adolescents and young adults (AYA) have the skills to contribute to the issues that affect them. This work present the opinions/experiences of Portuguese AYA, related to COVID-19, based on four multi-method studies with participants aged 16-24 years: (1st lockdown) 617 (M = 19.1 years, SD = 2.352); (Back to school) 304 (M = 18.4 years, SD = 2.12);...

This chapter addresses relevant calls for more PYD based research among emerging adults in Southern Europe and related psychological adjustment mechanisms during this life stage. In so doing, the chapter applies the 5Cs model of PYD (connection, competence, confidence, character and caring) to examine meaningful relations with subjective happiness...

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has affected people’s engagement in health behaviors, especially those that protect individuals from SARS-CoV-2 transmission, such as handwashing/sanitizing. This study investigated whether adherence to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) handwashing guidelines (the outcome variable) was associated with the trajec...

The World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes that health and well-being are essential to achieving the United Nations (UN) Development Agenda 2030, which includes the goal of empowering people to adopt active lifestyles while protecting the planet's health. This article aims at exploring how exercise performed in different natural settings can co...

Changes in routines and habits, fear of contamination from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) virus, and economic crisis have resulted in significant impacts upon individuals' lives, health, and risk behaviors. The present study aims to analyze health risk behaviors and gender differences of Portuguese adults before and during the COVID‐19 pan...

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the exponential increase in cases, educational institutions worldwide were forced to close, making way for digital learning. After a period of confinement and an online teaching methodology, a new school year has begun. However, this new school year included the application of a wide range of measures that transform...

The main objective of this study is to explore the impact of the psychosocial factors (social support, resilience, and mental health) on the family functioning and on the parent’s perception of their children’s well-being. Participants were 1757 parents of children aged 6 to 16 years, 77.3% female ( N = 1359), and 22.7% male ( N = 398), aged betwee...

Positive Youth Development (PYD) frameworks which describe young people's strengths and their relation to thriving and risk outcomes have gained significance among developmental researchers globally. As these models are being increasingly adopted, concerns remain about their generalizability outside of North America. It has been observed that the d...