Psychological well-being and self-esteem in Slovak adolescents

The interest in adolescence as a transitional developmental stage characterized by many important biological, psychological, and social changes is never-ending. Studies into adolescents in the environment of their school, peer and family with regard to constantly socio-economical changes bring new fi ndings about this period of life. In addition, mental health, its components and possible determinants in adolescence are always an important topic for researchers in this fi eld. Therefore, the present thesis is focusing on mental health, in particular on psychological well-being and self-esteem among Slovak adolescents. Chapter 1 provides an overall introduction in the adolescence period relevant for our study. Firstly, individual parts of the present study are focused on the constructs of psychological well-being and self-esteem as aspects of mental health. Their protective and risk factors, changes over time and countries’ differences in adolescence are described in this part. Secondly, mental health in the school context is described. Particularly, the model of well-being in the school environment, perceptions of school belonging/school connectedness and social relationships, and bullying as a form of violence in the school context are introduced in this part of thesis. At the end of the fi rst chapter the following general aims of the present study are mentioned: (1) to unravel the factor structure of measures for psychological well-being and self-esteem; (2) to explore determinants of psychological well-being and self-esteem at a certain moment in their adolescence; (3) to explore change over time of psychological well-being and self-esteem. Also the six research questions of this thesis and the overall outline are described. The background of the study, participants, study variables and statistical analyses used in this thesis are described in Chapter 2. Four samples are included to the present study. Three samples consist of Slovak respondents. The fi rst one comprises of 519 adolescents with mean age 11.5 years and same adolescents with mean age 14.9 in the follow-up measure. The second sample is composed of 1,023 Slovak adolescents with mean age 11.5 and 3,694 adolescents with mean age 14.3 years are belonged to the third sample. The Hungarian respondents consisted of 431 adolescents with mean age 11.5 years are included to fourth sample. Slovak data were collected on September 1999, February 2000, and June 2000 (first sample), April-June 2003 (second sample) and on September – December 2006 (third sample). Hungarian data were collected on October 2000, January and June 2001. Furthermore measures are described.