The authors investigated the health status of apprentices with regard to gender differences and the general adolescent population. They evaluated the health status using self-reported health indicators, assessing also aspects such as: general health status, subjective wellbeing, subjective medical complaints, chronic medical complaints and use of health services. The basic group comprised 2616 adolescents and was stratified with regard to the total Slovak first year student population in secondary schools by type of school and sex. The sub-group of apprentices comprised 583 boys and 352 girls, mean age 15 years. Self-reported health indicators proved valuable screening techniques which detected initial symptoms of later serious health problems. Findings based on their application indicated that the health status of apprentices is not optimal. Basic health problems of this group of adolescents seem to be health problems involving fatigue, general discomfort, headache, backache, skin problems and respiratory diseases. Respiratory diseases were the most frequent cause of the use of health services. From accidents all used indicators of the health status were significantly less favourable in the group of female apprentices as compared with male apprentices. The results of the study indicated a less favourable trend as regards the health status of apprentices in relation to the general population. In other words, girls were less healthy than boys and the health status of apprentices was below average in relation to the general adolescent population.

        Key words: health status, adolescence, apprentices, self-reported health indicators, gender