Risk and protective factors for mental health and wellbeing in childhood and adolescence

Anne Nolan,Esri ,Emer Smyth

doi:10.26504/rs120

Abstract

New ESRI research, based on Growing Up in Ireland, shows that strong relationships with parents, peers and teachers enhance child and adolescent wellbeing New ESRI research funded by HSE Health and Wellbeing, examines the risk and protective factors for mental health and wellbeing of children and young people. Using data from the Growing Up in Ireland ’08 Cohort at 9 years of age and the ’98 Cohort at 17 years of age, the research examined both positive (life satisfaction) and negative (socio-emotional difficulties) aspects of mental health and wellbeing. Socio-emotional difficulties refer to difficulties of an emotional nature (e.g., feeling unhappy, downhearted or tearful) or with peers (e.g., picked on or bullied).

Highlights

In this chapter, we review the Irish and international evidence on the risk and protective factors for mental health outcomes in childhood and adolescence
We focus on indicators that capture aspects of internalising behaviour,6 which are linked to depressive and anxiety disorders (Reiss, 2013), and more positive measures of wellbeing, and examine the role of family background, and the nature of parental, peer and school relationships in shaping these mental health outcomes
4.3 MULTIVARIATE REGRESSION RESULTS we move on to consider how these patterns are influenced by the addition of controls for the quality of parental, peer and teacher relationships

Summary

Introduction

We review the Irish and international evidence on the risk and protective factors for mental health outcomes in childhood and adolescence. Reiss (2013) undertook a systematic review of the relationship between various commonly used indicators of SES (such as parental education, social class and income) and mental health outcomes for children and adolescents aged four to 18 years.. We focus on the children from the ’08 Cohort, examining their levels of internalising socio-emotional difficulties at age nine. We focus on a positive dimension of mental wellbeing at nine years of age that is directly reported by the young person themselves, i.e. happiness/life satisfaction. The ‘happiness and satisfaction’ subscale of the Piers-Harris self-concept scale consists of items exploring feelings of happiness and satisfaction with life Scores on this subscale range from 0 to 6, with higher scores reflecting higher levels of happiness. This chapter looks at one dimension of socio-emotional wellbeing among young people – internalising difficulties, as measured by the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). There is evidence too of an increase in emotional difficulties among adolescents in many European countries in recent years (Collishaw, 2012; Hogberg et al, 2020), with increases in feelings of depression and anxiety apparent among young people in Ireland (Dooley et al, 2019).

Methods

Results

Conclusion