Relationships between Social-Emotional Skills, Family Connectedness, School Engagement and Mental Health Concerns among Middle School Students
2021-02
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Relationships between Social-Emotional Skills, Family Connectedness, School Engagement and Mental Health Concerns among Middle School Students
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2021-02
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Normative developmental tasks of early adolescents, occurring in the context of heightened academic demands, increased societal violence, and a current global pandemic, put youth at risk for mental health concerns. Family connectedness, school engagement, and social-emotional skills show promise as protective factors against such concerns. Guided by the Ecological Model for Health Promotion, the aim of the study was to describe associations between family connectedness, school engagement, social-emotional skills, and mental health concerns among middle school students. This study used de-identified data from a larger scale project that involved students from public middle schools in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area. The study used both cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses to evaluate relationships between social-emotional skills (empathy, problem-solving, self-awareness, social competency, mindfulness), family connectedness (caring relationships at home and high expectations at home), school engagement, and anxiety and depressive symptoms. The study found higher levels of social-emotional skills were generally associated with lower risk of anxiety and depressive symptoms in 8th grade. Self-awareness and mindfulness skills were shown as especially promising in reducing risk of these mental health concerns. Family connectedness, particularly caring relationships at home measured in 7th grade, was shown to significantly reduce risk of depressive and anxiety symptoms in 8th grade, with self-awareness found to partially mediate the relationship between family connectedness and mental health concerns. Affective engagement, a measure of school engagement in 7th grade, was not shown to be significantly associated with risk of anxiety or depressive symptoms in 8th grade. Study findings highlight the importance and impact of both intrapersonal and interpersonal factors in reducing risk for anxiety and depressive symptoms among early adolescents.
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University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. February 2021. Major: Nursing. Advisor: Renee Sieving. 1 computer file (PDF); xvi, 176 pages.
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Anderson, Lindsay. (2021). Relationships between Social-Emotional Skills, Family Connectedness, School Engagement and Mental Health Concerns among Middle School Students. Retrieved from the University Digital Conservancy, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/253730.
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