Piercing among adolescents: Body art as risk marker

The cross-sectional nature of our survey does not allow us to assess causality. The questionnaire was filled in the classroom, which excludes absentees and dropouts, both known to be at higher risk.12 Additionally, we do not know the location or the size of the piercings; some locations (eg, nipples or genitalia) are more likely associated with risk behaviors.3,4

Can these results be generalized?

But to what extent can our results be generalized to other, non-European adolescent populations? The prevalence rate is similar to those found among North American adolescents^4,5 and college students.² All published studies seem to indicate that pierced adolescents are more likely to be risk-taking.

That would indicate that our results are on the right track. However, more population-based studies need to be done to fully confirm this.

Acknowledgments

The 2002 Swiss Multicenter adolescent Survey on Health survey was carried out with the financial support of the Swiss federal office of Public Health (contract 00.001721/2.24.02.-81) and the participating cantons.

CORRESPONDENCE
Joan-Carles Suris, MD, PhD, MPH Groupe de recherche sur la santé les adolescents, Institut universitaire de médecine sociale et préventive, Bugnon 17, 1005 Lausanne, Switzerland joan-carles.suris@chuv.ch