Towards enhancing research on adolescent positivemental health

Abstract

The positive mental health and well-being perspective represents innovative public health research of first-rank priority in Europe. Good mental health is both a state and a resource for everyday life. Hence, the concept often refers to a subjective feeling (hedonic component) as well as positive functioning (eudaimonic component). Different conceptualisations of mental health-related issues are a background to this paper, which gives a brief overview of three research issues in the Nordic countries. First, the development in the occurrences of adolescent mental health-related indicators such as life satisfaction, health, sleep, and school pressure. Second, review of Nordic methodological studies reporting on different mental health-related measures. Third, the selection of measures of positive mental health employed in the 2017-2018 Health Behaviour among School-aged Children (HBSC) data collection in the Nordic countries. Using the Nordic HBSC data for 2002-2014, it was found that symptom and problem-oriented analyses of mental health can improve our understanding of the challenges adolescents face. However, there is also a need to examine positive aspects of mental health in order to enhance our understanding of different mental health-related dimensions. New measures were included in the 2017-18 HBSC data collection in the Nordic countries, enabling researchers to answer different research questions including analysing factors mediating and moderating positive mental health among school-aged children. Extending the perspective from a symptom-and problem-oriented view to a more positive and asset-based perspective adds additional value to studies of mental health.

Sense of Unity and Self-Reported Health Among 15-year-Olds: Findings From the Swedish 2017/18 Health Behavior in School-Aged Children Study

“…Suggested mechanisms for why sense of community and connectedness protect against adverse mental health include the construction of a social identity, less feelings of loneliness, perceptions of belonging, closeness, and support, and exposure to positive modeling [22,26,[42][43][44]. These, in addition to the provision of a sense of common good [15], are all possible ways in which sense of unity might operate as well, albeit specifically in relation to positive feelings of belongingness to society at large. While this study did not report any difference in sense of unity between boys and girls, earlier studies examining gender differences in related concepts such as sense of community and connectedness have produced inconsistent results [23,24,26,45,46].…”

“…Due to the skewed distribution, with a majority of respondents reporting a high sense of unity, the index was divided into three categories of about equal size indicating high (scores [35][36][37][38][39][40], medium (scores 31-34), and low (scores 8-30) sense of unity. More information about the instrument is found elsewhere [15].…”

Improving Adolescent Health: Translating Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Evidence Into Policy

“…The "Nordic collaboration on positive mental health" aims to improve the well-being of adolescents in the region, identify best policy practices, and channel the HBSC research into effective prevention and intervention strategies. The project also led to a successful completion of selecting, translating, and piloting new indicators of positive mental health for the 2017/2018 HBSC survey [14].…”

Building knowledge of adolescent mental healthin the Nordic countries

“…Moreover, the development of two main factors associated with adolescents' mental health, family communication and school-work pressure, are also analysed. Positive mental health and measurement tools to be used in the present research collaboration are the focus of the final paper (Eriksson et al, 2019). The project has been supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers through a project grant to the Nordic Welfare Centre.…”