Academic Department of Adolescent Medicine, University of Sydney, at Children's Hospital, Westmead, Sydney NSW 2145, Australia.
BMC Pediatr. 2012 Sep 5;12:143. doi: 10.1186/1471-2431-12-143.
Adolescence is characterized by marked psychosocial, behavioural and biological changes and represents a critical life transition through which adult health and well-being are established. Substantial research confirms the role of psycho-social and environmental influences on this transition, but objective research examining the role of puberty hormones, testosterone in males and oestradiol in females (as biomarkers of puberty) on adolescent events is lacking. Neither has the tempo of puberty, the time from onset to completion of puberty within an individual been studied, nor the interaction between age of onset and tempo. This study has been designed to provide evidence on the relationship between reproductive hormones and the tempo of their rise to adult levels, and adolescent behaviour, health and wellbeing.
METHODS/DESIGN: The ARCHER study is a multidisciplinary, prospective, longitudinal cohort study in 400 adolescents to be conducted in two centres in regional Australia in the State of New South Wales. The overall aim is to determine how changes over time in puberty hormones independently affect the study endpoints which describe universal and risk behaviours, mental health and physical status in adolescents. Recruitment will commence in school grades 5, 6 and 7 (10-12 years of age). Data collection includes participant and parent questionnaires, anthropometry, blood and urine collection and geocoding. Data analysis will include testing the reliability and validity of the chosen measures of puberty for subsequent statistical modeling to assess the impact over time of tempo and onset of puberty (and their interaction) and mean-level repeated measures analyses to explore for significant upward and downward shifts on target outcomes as a function of main effects.
The strengths of this study include enrollment starting in the earliest stages of puberty, the use of frequent urine samples in addition to annual blood samples to measure puberty hormones, and the simultaneous use of parental questionnaires.
青春期的特点是明显的心理社会、行为和生理变化，是通过建立成人健康和幸福的关键生命过渡。大量研究证实了心理社会和环境影响在这一转变中的作用，但缺乏客观研究来检验青春期激素、男性睾丸素和女性雌二醇（作为青春期的生物标志物）对青少年事件的作用。青春期的速度，即个体从青春期开始到结束的时间，也没有研究过，也没有研究过发病年龄和速度之间的相互作用。本研究旨在提供关于生殖激素与它们上升到成人水平的速度以及青少年行为、健康和幸福感之间关系的证据。
方法/设计：ARCHER 研究是一项多学科、前瞻性、纵向队列研究，在澳大利亚新南威尔士州的两个中心招募 400 名青少年。总体目标是确定随着时间的推移，青春期激素的变化如何独立影响描述青少年普遍和风险行为、心理健康和身体状况的研究终点。招募工作将从学校 5、6 和 7 年级（10-12 岁）开始。数据收集包括参与者和家长的问卷、人体测量学、血液和尿液采集以及地理编码。数据分析将包括测试所选青春期测量方法的可靠性和有效性，以便随后进行统计建模，以评估青春期速度和发病时间（及其相互作用）随时间的影响，以及重复测量分析的均值，以探索目标结果的显著上升和下降作为主要效应的函数。
这项研究的优势包括在青春期的最早阶段开始招募，除了每年一次的血液样本外，还使用频繁的尿液样本来测量青春期激素，以及同时使用家长问卷。
