School refusal and anxiety among children and adolescents: A systematic scoping review

Abstract

School refusal and anxiety are considerable problems among children and adolescents. While numerous studies were published, no review on the issue has been conducted to holistically reveal the current research results. This study uses a systematic scoping review design and aims to synthesize the results of the current studies on seeking an answer to the relationship between school refusal and anxiety to make recommendations for teachers, school counselors and administrators, and educational researchers for further research. Included studies were designed as qualitative, experimental, correlational, descriptive, or mixed-method, while studies designed as a thematic review, systematic review, and meta-analysis were excluded. The study identified 30 research articles that met the inclusion criteria within this scope. Results showed that anxiety is a prevalent factor associated with school refusal, whereas school refusal is directly and closely related to state and trait anxiety, social anxiety, school anxiety, and separation anxiety. Another finding was that school punishment, bad family functioning, parental depression, and parental anxiety are strong predictors of school refusal.

School completion and progression to higher education in adolescents with social anxiety: a linkage between Young-HUNT3 and national educational data (2008–2019), Norway

“…One suggested explanation is that experiencing anxiety in a school situation generates difficulties with concentrating in class, which in turn, affect academic performance [ 56 ]. Since one of the main characteristics of social anxiety is the avoidance of anxiety-triggering situations, it has also been suggested that experiencing fears might lead to school refusal and absence [ 57 , 58 ], which in turn, could lead to dropouts.…”

School refusal behavior in children and adolescents: a five-year narrative review of clinical significance and psychopathological profiles

“…Study Name Article format (e.g., review) [3,5,17] Sample characteristics: only specific population included [18,19] Not included quantitative and standardized data (e.g. case series study) [20] Article for validation instrument [21] validated assessment tools, and employed both univariate and multivariate statistical methods.…”

Reliability and validity evidence of the School Anxiety Inventory scores in a sample of Spanish children: A new self‐report

“…Specifically, school anxiety may occur in childhood with greater intensity, frequency, and duration before school changes, such as those derived from the expansion of Sars‐Cov2 (Kamran & Naeim, 2021), transitions of the educational stage (La Greca & Burdette, 2022; Xu et al, 2021), or certain school events such as academic evaluation, social evaluation, failure, school punishment, or circumstances linked to peer aggression and/or victimization (García‐Fernández et al, 2014; Gómez‐Núñez et al, 2017; Ingles et al, 2015). Among the consequences of school anxiety are the likelihood of lower academic performance and problems in school well‐being (Hossain et al, 2021; Shamionov et al, 2021), increased experiences of bullying and higher rates of aggressiveness (Delgado, García‐Fernández, et al, 2019; Torregrosa et al, 2020), somatic complaints (Jastrowski Mano, 2017), increase in school refusal (Gómez‐Núñez et al, 2019; Gonzálvez, Ingles, Sanmartín et al, 2018; Tekin & Aydın, 2022), cognitive distortions (Abend et al, 2017), depressive symptoms (Alesi et al, 2014), and social anxiety (Delgado, Escortell Sánchez, et al, 2019).…”

“…Psychol Schs. 2024;61:686-705. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pits consequences of school anxiety are the likelihood of lower academic performance and problems in school wellbeing (Hossain et al, 2021;Shamionov et al, 2021), increased experiences of bullying and higher rates of aggressiveness (Delgado, García-Fernández, et al, 2019;Torregrosa et al, 2020), somatic complaints (Jastrowski Mano, 2017), increase in school refusal (Gómez-Núñez et al, 2019;Gonzálvez, Ingles, Sanmartín et al, 2018;Tekin & Aydın, 2022), cognitive distortions (Abend et al, 2017), depressive symptoms (Alesi et al, 2014), and social anxiety (Delgado, Escortell Sánchez, et al, 2019).…”