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

Health-related quality of life in portuguese children and adolescents

The KIDSCREEN is a European cross-cultural and standardized instrument that assesses ten quality of life dimensions in children, adolescents and their parents. This instrument is used to validate evidences to support general inferences on quality-of-life measures obtained by the Portuguese version of KIDSCREEN10 for children and adolescents, in the context of a survey research carried on in Portugal. The present study focuses only on the KIDSCREEN children and adolescents' versions. A sample of 8072 Portuguese children and adolescents attending the 5th grade (19.3%), 6th grade (19.2%), 7th grade (20.3%), 8th (21.6%) and 10th grade (19.7%) in Portuguese schools were inquired, with a mean age of 13.2; SD 2.06, randomly distributed regarding gender. The Portuguese version of KIDSCREEN-10 instrument showed a good Internal Consistency of .78. Chosen fit indexes indicate good fit to the data. Specifically in the final solution the RMSEA was lower than .03 and the upper limit of 90% confidence interval was lower than .05, and CFI was higher than .95. Results indicated that the current 10-item structure is invariant across age groups, nationality and socio-economic level. The KIDSCREEN-10 questionnaire is a reliable instrument to estimate the perception of quality of life in children and adolescents. Psychometric guidelines are presented for the Portuguese population aged 10 to 16 years old.O KIDSCREEN é um instrumento europeu transcultural e padronizado que avalia dez dimensões da qualidade de vida de crianças, adolescentes e seus pais. Este instrumento é usado para validar evidências a fim de apoiar inferências gerais sobre medidas de qualidade de vida obtidas pela versão portuguesa do KIDSCREEN-10 para crianças e adolescentes, no contexto de uma pesquisa de investigação feita em Portugal. O presente estudo centra-se apenas na versão KIDSCREEN para adolescentes e crianças. Uma amostra de 8.072 crianças e adolescentes portugueses frequentando a 5ª série (19,3%), 6ª série (19,2%), 7ª série (20,3%), 8ª série (21,6%) e 10ª série (19,7%) em escolas do país foram intrevistadas, com uma idade média de 13,2; DP 2,06, distribuídos aleatoriamente em relação ao sexo. A versão portuguesa do instrumento KIDSCREEN-10 mostrou uma boa consistência interna de 0,78. Os índices de ajuste escolhidos indicam bom ajuste aos dados. Especificamente na solução final o RMSEA foi inferior a 0,03, o limite superior do intervalo de confiança de 90% foi inferior a 0,05 e CFI foi superior a 0,95. Resultados indicaram que a estrutura atual do item 10 é invariável entre grupos de idade, nacionalidade e nível socio-econômico. O questionário KIDSCREEN-10 é um instrumento confiável para estimar a percepção da qualidade de vida em crianças e adolescentes. Orientações psicométricas são apresentadas para a população portuguesa entre 10 e 16 anos de idade

Dimensions of social and personal skills in children and adolescents : age and gender differences

Copyright © 2018, Tânia 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 work is properly cited.Personal and social skills play a key role in children and adolescents’ development, as well as their psychological well-being. Was used the Scale "For me it’s Easy" to assess personal and social skills in children and adolescents. The study includes 960 Portuguese children and adolescents with a mean age of 12.5 years (SD = 1.61). Included were 56.8 % boys of different educational levels. The studied version of the instruments demonstrated good psychometric properties and the factor structure identifies 5 dimensions of personal and social skills (Basic Skills, Problem Solving, Emotional Regulation, Interpersonal Relationships and Defining Objectives). Differences were found in the social and personal skills related to gender and related to age. The behavior of the different dimensions of social and personal skills was studied. It was found that there was a strong relationship between social and personal skills and psychological well-being in children and adolescents. The study 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

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

Quality of life and well-being of adolescents in portuguese schools

The quality of the school environment is associated with greater school involvement and academic success and improved levels of well-being/quality of life. In this sense, this study intends to explore the relationship between the quality of life of Portuguese adolescents and school. 8215 adolescents participated in this study, 52.7% of which were female, aged between 10 and 22 years and an average age of 14.36 years (SD=2.28). The sample was collected as part of the Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC) study. The results show that girls like school, teachers, school breaks (between classes) and classes more than boys and present less concerns/difficulties with school. Compared to boys, they report more pressure with the schoolwork and a better perception of safety at school. On the other hand, boys have a better relationship with their peers and teachers, miss more classes on purpose and report a higher perception of quality of life. An above-average QoL is statistically and significantly related with liking school, peers, teachers, school breaks (between classes) and classes. It is also related with feeling less pressure with the schoolwork, a better perception of school success and of safety in the school environment. Additionally, having an above-average QoL is statistically significantly associated with having a better relationship with peers and teachers and less concerns/difficulties with school. This is an important message for the reorganization of schools in terms of their practices and curricula. The need to develop strategies to promote greater identification of students with school is reinforced.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia - FCTinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Alcohol and tobacco use in Portuguese adolescents: The relationship with social factors, future expectations, physical and psychological symptoms

The influence that social factors (relationship with teachers, peers and family support), future expectations, physical and psychological symptoms exert on the adolescents’ tobacco and alcohol consumption is analyzed, and the differences between users and non-users are analyzed as well. This work is part of the HBSC study. The results show that substance use is associated with more physical and psychological symptoms, worse relationship with teachers and peers, less family support, and lower future expectations. It is important to intervene towards the construction of more positive future expectations and relationships and the promotion of physical and psychological well-being, as protective factors against substance use.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia - FCTinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Intervention in Schools promoting mental health and well-being: a systematic review

Schools have been identified as a main scenery for building social, emotional, and behavioural support among children because students spend a substantial amount of time there. This systematic review was developed and registered based on the PRISMA recommendations. The main objective was identifying school context interventions that focus on students’ wellbeing and mental health. This review refers to papers focusing on young people ages 0 to 18 years old who attend school and had been the target audience for mental health and wellbeing promotion interventions. Inclusion criteria for this systematic review was that interventions must have been carried out within a school context. The results indicate that most studies (n=13; 68%) were conducted using quantitative methodology. The majority of articles intended to promote mental health in a school context, either involving the whole school or only students. Results highlight the importance of the involvement of the whole school in order to better promote mental health and wellbeing. Findings also indicate that after years of “stigma”, mental health has become a main concern in school-aged population

Intervention in Schools promoting mental health and well-being: a systematic review

Schools have been identified as a main scenery for building social, emotional, and behavioural support among children because students spend a substantial amount of time there. This systematic review was developed and registered based on the PRISMA recommendations. The main objective was identifying school context interventions that focus on students’ wellbeing and mental health. This review refers to papers focusing on young people ages 0 to 18 years old who attend school and had been the target audience for mental health and wellbeing promotion interventions. Inclusion criteria for this systematic review was that interventions must have been carried out within a school context. The results indicate that most studies (n=13; 68%) were conducted using quantitative methodology. The majority of articles intended to promote mental health in a school context, either involving the whole school or only students. Results highlight the importance of the involvement of the whole school in order to better promote mental health and wellbeing. Findings also indicate that after years of “stigma”, mental health has become a main concern in school-aged population