Parenting practices : parent’s perception of the impact in children psychological wellbeing

SM Online Journals © All Rights Reserved.Parenting practices play an important role in children’s subjective wellbeing and global mental health. The study included a sample of 2256 parents of 2256 children from 5th grade (48.8%) and 7th grade (51.2%), mean age 11.58 years old; SD 1.41; ranging from 10-16 (48,4% between 10 and 11 years of age and 51.6% 12 years or older); there were 46.2 % boys and 53.8 % girls. The results present the descriptive analyses of the principal variables, parenting practices and parent’s perception of child subjective wellbeing. It is presented a Regression Model that illustrates the strong impact of parenting practices in subjective wellbeing, and the gender and age differences in this relation. The main conclusions are that positive parenting practices (control and acceptance) are related to positive perception of subjective wellbeing. Parents have a more positive perception of their parenting practices in relation to girls and younger children. Suggestions for intervention are proposed, related to positive parenting practices promotion programs and intervention that involve parents-children activities.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Risks and comorbid factors of frequent headaches during childhood and adolescence

Copyright: © 2017 Paiva T, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Background: The prevalence of headache during adolescence is very high. In most studies, the prevalence of headache is higher in females. The objective of the present study was to evaluate statistically significant associations between high headache frequency and multiple variables obtained in a National Survey. Methods: The included variables were demographic and socioeconomic; other health complaints; sleep characteristics and complaints; current adolescents´ habits concerning multimedia/electronic tools and nutrition variables; risk behaviors; social support and school satisfaction with the final purpose of building a risk association model for adolescents´ frequent headaches by means of a logistic regression. This survey is a component of the Health Behavior in School-Aged Children (HBSC) study. The Portuguese HBSC survey included 3476 pupils (53.8 % girls) in the 8th (45.9%) and 10th grades (54.1%) with a mean age was 14.9 years (SD=1.26). Results: The prevalence of high-frequency headaches was 22.2% and their major comorbidities were other health complaints with special reference to abdominal pain and dizziness and psychopathological symptoms, namely sadness, irritability, nervousness and low energy. Furthermore, they had lower family support, lower academic success, unfair treatment, loneliness and nobody to share or to worry about their problems and lower quality of life; e-media and excessive mobile phone use, tobacco and alcohol use, and some violent behaviors were also associated with the presence of frequent headaches. Conclusion: In spite of these significant associations, the logistic regression model explaining 38% of the variance included mostly other health complaints.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Psychological and social factors that influence quality of life : gender, age and professional status differences

Coryright © 2017 David Publishing Company All rights reserved. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International LicenseQuality of life is influenced by psychological and social factors. Quality of life in the ageing process is a complex and multidimensional process, also influenced by gender, age and professional status. The data were collected on a national level. The sample was composed by1,330 people, 62.2% of which were female with ages ranging between 55 and 75 years old. 34.4% of the sample mentioned having a chronic condition, 48.2% of which had diabetes. Three regression models were created in order to understand the quality of life in ageing population in a biopsychosocial perspective. Results showed that quality of life in ageing population is influenced by psychological factors (purpose of life and stress management skills) and by social factors (family and friends social support). Gender, age, and professional status can also influence quality of life. Our study allowed us to conclude that quality of life is influenced by physical, psychological, and social health. The psychological factors presented a more systematic and strong influence in quality of life on the ageing population.This work was supported by Minerva Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Perception of quantity and quality of sleep and their association with health related quality of life and life satisfaction during adolescence

Copyright: © 2017 Matos MG. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Objectives: This study aims to analyse differences between sleep duration and sleep quality and their association with health related quality of life and life satisfaction during adolescence. Methods: The Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC) survey is based on a self-completed questionnaire. The participants in the present study were 3631 students (53.1% were girls) in the 8th and 10th grades at school; the mean age was 14.8 years (range 13-18). Results: The present results add to previous ones that both the duration and the perceived quality of sleep have impact upon the perception of quality of life and the perception of life satisfaction. Conclusions: These results are substantially important for sleep hygiene and for recommendations for adolescents, parents, health and education professionals and public policies. It is now widely recommended that adolescents must sleep at least 8 hours per night, what this study allow to recommend is that the perception of quality of that sleep is equally important, and this leads to another set of recommendations to increase sleep quality, that include not exercising or practising sports in the evenings, avoiding conflicts at home in the evenings, no going to bed worried, no having caffeine and other energetic drinks in the evening, not abusing screen time after dinner or in bed. These recommendations are important to assure sleep duration and perceived quality and therefore the perception of wellness and life satisfaction, having an additional impact on health and on school achievement.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Caffeine, sleep duration and adolescents’ perception of health related quality of life

© 2016 Matos et al.; This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Introduction: The main objective of this study was to understand the impact of caffeine on adolescents’ health and health related behaviours, namely sleep duration and health related quality of life. Methods: Students in the 6th, 8th and 10th grades were chosen randomly from clusters of schools for this study. A questionnaire designed to measure caffeine consumption, sleep quantity and quality and health related quality of life was used. ANOVAs were used for gender and grade and three multilinear regression models were conducted. Results: Coffee and soft drinks with caffeine have a negative impact in sleep duration. Both sleep duration and quality have a positive effect on health related quality of life. Although the use of energetic drinks with alcohol is low, it has a negative impact on the perception of health quality of life. Males have shown a better perception of health related quality of life and greater quantity and quality of sleep while females report more difficulties falling asleep and report more fatigue. Conclusions: Caffeine intake has a negative impact on sleep duration and perception of health related quality of life, although accounting for a relatively low variance.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Shedding Light on the lifestyle and participation of portuguese adolescents with chronic conditions—Data from the HBSC 2018 Study

Variables associated with lifestyle can constitute either risk or protective factors for the development and progression of chronic conditions (CC). This study intends to explore the differences between adolescents with and without CC and between adolescents whose school participation is affected/not affected by the existing CC with regard to variables related to lifestyle (i.e., sleep, physical activity, BMI, and leisure). In addition, it also intends to analyze the influence of these variables (i.e., CC and lifestyle) regarding the adolescents’ quality of life (QoL). This work is part of the Portuguese HBSC 2018 study. A total of 8215 adolescents participated (52.7% female), with an average age of 14.36 years (SD = 2.28). The results showed that the adolescents with CC and whose school attendance and participation are affected by their CC exhibit more sleep difficulties (i.e., they experience lower sleep quality and have a higher degree of sleepiness), higher BMI levels (i.e., higher values of overweight and obesity), less participation in leisure activities, and a lower perception of QoL. A higher perception of QoL is associated with school participation unaffected by the existing CC, sleeping well, a low level of sleepiness, a more frequent practice of physical activity, a lower BMI, and a greater involvement in leisure activities. Adolescent health and well-being are a prominent issue in terms of public policies, with behavior and lifestyle playing a significant role in this domain. This message needs to be reinforced in regard to families, educators, healthcare professionals, and public sector policies, particularly concerning students with CC.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Physical fights involvement in school setting and adolescents’ behaviours : highlights from health behaviour in school-aged children (HBSC/WHO) - fights in school setting and adolescent’s behaviours

Copyright © 2019 Susana Gaspar et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and work is properly cited.Aim: To analyse gender differences and associations regarding physical fights and their relationship with other health compromising behaviours. Methods: Participants consisted of 5,423 Portuguese adolescents in the context of the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children/World Health Organization study. Independent Chi-Square, Independent Sample T-tests were used to analyse the relationship between physical fights involvement and health compromising behaviour. Binary logistic regressions were conducted to analyse the associations between physical fights involvement and variables with statistical significance for at least one gender in preliminary bivariate analysis. Regression analyses were stratified by gender adjusted by age. Result: 21.3% of the adolescents reported at least one fighting episode. 61.1% of fights occurred in school. Students from 6th grade had a higher involvement in fights than 10th grade students. For both genders, fighting occurrence is related to consumptions (alcohol, drugs use), violence (being bullied, being a bully, carrying weapons and safety perception at school). Boys from Alentejo region, 6th grade and who practice physical activity, reported more physical fights involvement. For boys, carrying weapons decreases the probability of fights occurrence in school. Conclusion: This study confirms the impact of physical fighting in Portuguese adolescents and emphasizes that specific strategies to address this physical fighting are important. Public policies must take gender and age specificities into consideration while designing and implementing preventive interventions with pupils and families, in the school and in the community, in order to promote a safer environment at school and an adolescents’ positive development. Active social support from peers, parents, teachers and school staff is needed so that weapons are not used as a way to secure schools’ environment. National strategies and interventions in school context must be prioritized with regional focus in order to address regional specificities.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The effect of a social-emotional school-based intervention upon social and personal skills in children and adolescents

Copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).In the middle of the 20th century, there was a shift from a skills deficit approach to a positive approach, focused on promoting assets and individual strengths. The role of social-emotional competences became salient. School is a privileged arena for universal and selective prevention interventions that can help pupils in raising their competence to cope with life challenges in a relaxed, non-violent and effective way. Personal and social-emotional skills play a key role in children and adolescents’ development, as well as their behavior towards risk factors and there is a need to evidence-based interventions. The scale “For me it’s Easy” is an evaluation tool for personal and socio-emotional skills and was used to assess the effect of a Social and Emotional Skills Promotion Program. Personal and social skills play a key role in children and adolescents’ development, as well as their behavior towards risk factors. The study includes an intervention group with 960 Portuguese children and adolescents with a mean age of 12.5 years (SD = 1.61) and included were 56.8% boys of different educational levels. The waiting-list group included 171 children and adolescents; 46.2% were boys. The mean age was 14.7 years and the SD was 3.3. The results reveal significant differences in the intervention group related to the competences before and after the intervention, namely in the interpersonal relationships and definition of goal related skills, while in the waiting list group there were no significant differences in the moment before and after the intervention, and the scale “For me it’s Easy” can be considered an instrument which contributes to the research and evaluation of intervention in children and adolescents, especially in the prevention and promotion of personal and social skills and healthy development.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Prevention and psychotherapy : downstream and upstream models and methods

© 2019 Matos MGD, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. © Under License of Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 LicenseModels of psychological interventions can be divided into two broad categories: those whose focus is the individual, often framed as psychotherapy, and those that are framed as community where the focus is an entire population. These approaches have largely developed independently and have their own theoretical models and techniques, and see themselves as distinct. The aim of this paper is to challenge this separation and to encourage psychologists who have an individual focus, in hospital or private practice, and psychologists who intervene with a community focus, to share ideas and to develop a common language so that there is continuity across both models. This will allow them to complement each other and foster synergy, improving results in both areas. A historical visit will be made highlighting the evolution of the paradigm of preventive models and their evolution, and will focus on perspectives’ interaction between individual and group psychotherapy and prevention models, in what the increase of populations’ well-being is concerned.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Health and wellbeing behaviors of portuguese and foreign adolescents living in Portugal in the context of economic recession

This study aims to understand the evolution of health and risk behaviors of Portuguese and foreign teenagers living in Portugal between 2010 and 2014, a period that overlap with the economic recession. Participants are adolescents included in the study HBSC - Health Behaviour in School-aged Children in 2010 and 2014 in Portugal, including 11,079 young people from the 6th, 8th and 10th grades. Despite the general favorable evolution in health and wellbeing of adolescents, some vulnerabilities are identified, needing an urgent action. This study reinforces the importance of preventing the effects of the economic recession on health and adolescents behaviors, and points out some policy implications particularly in the area of education and health.O presente estudo tem como objetivo compreender a evolução dos comportamentos de saúde e de risco dos adolescentes portugueses e estrangeiros a viver em Portugal entre 2010 e 2014, período que coincide com a recessão económica. Conta com a participação dos adolescentes incluídos no estudo HBSC – Health Behaviour in School-aged Children, em 2010 e 2014 em Portugal, incluindo 11.079 jovens do 6º, 8º e 10º anos de escolaridade. Conclui-se deste estudo que apesar da evolução em geral favorável da saúde e bem-estar dos adolescentes, se identificam algumas fragilidades. Esta investigação vem reforçar a importância de prevenir os efeitos da recessão económica na saúde e nos comportamentos dos adolescentes e aponta algumas implicações nas políticas públicas nomeadamente na área da educação e saúde.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio