Towards enhancing research on adolescent positive mental health

The positive mental health and well-being perspective represents innovative public health research of first-rank priority in Europe. Good mental health is both a state and a resource for everyday life. Hence, the concept often refers to a subjective feeling (hedonic component) as well as positive functioning (eudaimonic component). Different conceptualisations of mental health-related issues are a background to this paper, which gives a brief overview of three research issues in the Nordic countries. First, the development in the occurrences of adolescent mental health-related indicators such as life satisfaction, health, sleep, and school pressure. Second, review of Nordic methodological studies reporting on different mental health-related measures. Third, the selection of measures of positive mental health employed in the 2017–2018 Health Behaviour among School-aged Children (HBSC) data collection in the Nordic countries. Using the Nordic HBSC data for 2002–2014, it was found that symptom and problem-oriented analyses of mental health can improve our understanding of the challenges adolescents face. However, there is also a need to examine positive aspects of mental health in order to enhance our understanding of different mental health-related dimensions. New measures were included in the 2017–18 HBSC data collection in the Nordic countries, enabling researchers to answer different research questions including analysing factors mediating and moderating positive mental health among school-aged children. Extending the perspective from a symptom- and problem-oriented view to a more positive and asset-based perspective adds additional value to studies of mental health.</p

Trends in sleeping difficulty among adolescents in five Nordic countries 2002–2014

Sleep has been found to be an important factor in adolescents’ mental and physical health. The aim of the present study was to examine trends in sleep difficulty (i.e., difficulty falling asleep more often than once a week) in the Nordic countries among 11- to 15-year-olds. We analysed Nordic data from the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study (HBSC), which is conducted every four years, looking specifically at trends in sleep difficulty over a 12-year period from 2002 to 2014. The participants were aged 11 to 15 years. The total number of participants across these years was 113,447. A large percentage (17% to 31% in 2014) of adolescents in the Nordic countries experience sleep difficulty, and these difficulties increased from 2002 to 2014 in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, and Sweden. Only in Norway was there a decrease, mainly due to a reduction in sleep difficulty among 11-year-old boys and girls from 2010 to 2014. Sleep difficulty among boys and girls are prevalent and generally on the rise in the Nordic countries with the exception of Norway.peerReviewe

Towards enhancing research on adolescent positive mental health

The positive mental health and well-being perspective represents innovative public health research of first-rank priority in Europe. Good mental health is both a state and a resource for everyday life. Hence, the concept often refers to a subjective feeling (hedonic component) as well as positive functioning (eudaimonic component). Different conceptualisations of mental health-related issues are a background to this paper, which gives a brief overview of three research issues in the Nordic countries. First, the development in the occurrences of adolescent mental health-related indicators such as life satisfaction, health, sleep, and school pressure. Second, review of Nordic methodological studies reporting on different mental health-related measures. Third, the selection of measures of positive mental health employed in the 2017–2018 Health Behaviour among School-aged Children (HBSC) data collection in the Nordic countries. Using the Nordic HBSC data for 2002–2014, it was found that symptom and problem-oriented analyses of mental health can improve our understanding of the challenges adolescents face. However, there is also a need to examine positive aspects of mental health in order to enhance our understanding of different mental health-related dimensions. New measures were included in the 2017–18 HBSC data collection in the Nordic countries, enabling researchers to answer different research questions including analysing factors mediating and moderating positive mental health among school-aged children. Extending the perspective from a symptom- and problem-oriented view to a more positive and asset-based perspective adds additional value to studies of mental health.peerReviewe

Positive mental health among school-aged children: a Nordic research collaborations

The HBSC study has given us the opportunity to study measures of mental health or related to mental health over a period of 12 years from 2002 to 2014 across five Nordic countries. The aim is to present a Nordic collaborative research program based on the Health Behaviour of School-aged Children (HBSC) using positive perspectives on mental health measures. The collaboration includes meetings in Sweden and one-day writing seminars before the HBSC international bi-annual meetings as well as webinars