Association between Family Cohesion and Mental Health-Related Quality of Life for Secondary School Students in Amara City

Abstract

The aim of the study is to identify the association between students’ age, family's socioeconomic status, family cohesion, and mental health-related quality of life, and to investigate the differences in students’ mental health-related quality of life between the groups of grade, socioeconomic status, living arrangements, birth order, and academic achievement. A descriptive correlational design. In this study, several variables were examined to determine the association between family cohesion and mental health-related quality of life. The target population for this study was drawn from middle and high school adolescents, aged 11 to 22-years, who were living in Amara City. The Family Relations and Cohesion Scale-Student Survey of Risk and Protective Factors (Social Development Research Group, University of Washington, n.d.) was used to measure family interaction and cohesion, which includes six items. The mean age is 16.08 ± 1.99; more than a half age 17-18-years (n = 202; 33.7%), followed by those who age 15-16-years (n = 176; 29.3%), those who age 13-14-years (n = 142; 23.7%), those who age 19-20-years (n = 68; 11.3%), those who age 11-12-years (n = 8; 1.3%), and those who age 21-22-years (n = 4; 0.7%).