Mental health problems and associated factors in secondary school students from Foshan, Guangdong, China

Yaodong Li^1*Ting Peng¹Junxian Liu¹Huanyu Xu¹Lian Jie²Jiarong Lei¹Zaiping Huang¹Jieping Lin¹Qingmei Zheng¹Cai Zhao¹Yu Huang¹Wen Wang¹Guang Yang¹Rongdi Liang¹Yu Dai¹Xiaonian Luo¹

• ¹The Fourth People's Hospital of Shunde(Shunde Wu Zhongpei Memorial Hospital), Foshan,Guangdong, China, Guangdong, China
• ²Southwest Campus of Shunde No.1 High School, Foshan,Guangdong, China, Foshan, China

Background: Secondary school students are in a relatively sensitive adolescent period, which is critical for mental development. The present study aimed to examine the mental health status and associated factors in secondary school students. Methods: Secondary school students were enrolled from all the five secondary schools in Shunde District, Guangdong. The Mental Health Inventory of Middle School Students (MMHI-60), School Refusal Behavior Evaluation Scale (SRBES), School Refusal Assessment Scale for Children (SRAS-C), Revised Chinese Internet Addiction Scale (CIAS-R), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Adolescent Suicide Tendency Scale (ASTS), Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) and Self-esteem scale (SES) were used to assess mental health problems and determine associated factors in secondary school students. Results: A total of 8,013 secondary school students were included. The prevalence of abnormal mental health was 22.4% by MMHI-60, 19.7% by SRBES, 5.4% by CIAS-R and 20.3% by ASTS, respectively. The scores of CD-RISC and SES were positively correlated with each other, and negatively correlated with the scores of SRBES, CIAS, PSQI, ASTS and MMHI-60 (P<0.05). The scores of SRBES, CIAS, PSQI, ASTS and MMHI-60 were positively correlated with each other (P<0.05). There were 62 students (0.8%) who showed abnormal mental problems suggested by all four scales of SRBES, CIAS-R, MMHI-60 and ASTS. Girls had significantly higher scores of SRBES, SRAS-C, PSQI, ASTS, CIAS-R and MMHI-60 but significantly lower scores of SES and CD-RISC than boys (P<0.05). Additionally, economic status, father’s education, mother’s education and grade rank were also associated with the above eight scales (P<0.05). Conclusion: Our study demonstrated the mental health problems in secondary school students and associated factors, which are essential for developing targeted interventions and policies to support the mental well-being of this vulnerable population.