BMC Public Health

Table 2 Demographic and pre-pubertal predictors of earlier menarche in females

From: Early pubertal onset and its relationship with sexual risk taking, substance use and anti-social behaviour: a preliminary cross-sectional study

		Age at menarche (years)								Total⁺
		Online (%)				Paper (%)
		n	≤ 12	≥ 13	P	n	≤ 12	≥ 13	P	AOR	95%CI	P
Age at	16-24 years	345	44.3	39.7	0.179	495	84.6	86.3	0.559	ns
survey	≥ 25 years	477	55.7	60.3		83	15.4	13.7
Ethnicity	white	792	95.8	97.3	0.243	547	93.8	95.4	0.387	ns
	other	28	4.2	2.7		30	6.2	4.6
Sexuality	heterosexual	749	91.5	91.9	0.825	527	95.8	95.3	0.786	ns
	lesbian/bisexual	68	8.5	8.1		25	4.2	4.7
Number of	≤ 1	506	59.6	63.5	0.251	443	72.7	79.2	0.071	Ref
childhood illnesses^§	≥ 2	316	40.4	36.5		135	27.3	20.8		1.87	(0.98-3.57)	*
Overweight^§	no	704	83.2	88.3	*	493	78.8	89.7	***	Ref
	yes	117	16.8	11.7		84	21.2	10.3		1.89	(1.36-2.63)	***
Father at	no	160	18.7	21.4	0.340	119	22.1	21.4	0.838	ns
home^§	yes	640	81.3	78.6		430	77.9	78.6
Days off	≤ 10	672	78.0	86.7	0.712	479	73.5	84.3	0.144	ns
school per year^§	≥ 11	142	22.0	13.3		91	26.5	15.7
In poorest socio-	no	501	61.2	66.8	0.105	415	75.2	79.8	0.213	Ref
economic grouping^$§	yes	282	38.8	33.2		117	24.8	20.2		1.32	(1.03-1.71)	*

^$ Socio-economic grouping is based on highest ranking parents. Lowest grouping includes those whose parents' occupation was semi-routine and routine and those who never worked or were long-term unemployed (see methods for more details). ^§Questions refer to childhood before menarche (see methods for more details). *<0.05, **<0.01, ***<0.001, ns = not significant. ⁺Logistic regression analysis utilised all variables in table as well as data source (i.e. online or paper), AOR = Adjusted Odds Ratio, CI = Confidence Intervals.

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ISSN: 1471-2458

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