Estabilidad del estado de salud mental en escolares de la comuna de Concepción, Chile (original) (raw)

Mental health is currently considered a biopsychosocial concept that can be addressed by various indicators, such as self-esteem and social support, which can be associated to capacities and conditions of the human being that contribute to this aspect of health. In Chile, mental health investigation has focused on studying these indicators on stages such as middle and late adolescence, youth and adulthood, leaving some gaps on childhood and early adolescence, which is are key stages of development, where many mental disorders are established. Very little is known about the stability of such indicators at these stages, as most studies include maximum two measurements at different periods of time. Considering this information, the main objective of the current proposal was to characterize the stability of mental health indicators (anxiety, depressive mood, self-esteem, positive and negative affect, and perceived social support from family and friends) on childhood, early and mid-adolescence, in scholars from Concepción, Chile. To carry out this study the sample consisted on 467 scholars from fourth to eighth grade (8 to 16 years), from municipal, subsidized particular and private particular schools. The study was divided on 2 stages: (1) adaptation and validation of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSS), and the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS); and (2) analysis of the stability of mental health indicators at intervals vii of 1, 2 and 4 months, as well as the relationship between such variables. Results indicated that: (1) almost all instruments had a good or acceptable reliability (αHADS-Anxiety= .75; α HADS-Depressive mood= .65; α PANAS-Positive affect= .84; α PANAS-Negative affect= .85; α RSS= .84; α MSPSS-Total= .86; α MSPSS-Family= .88; α MSPSS-Friends= .86; αMSPSS-Significant others= .71), (2) levels of all variables included on the study where stable at 1, 2 and 4 months, (3) there where moderate positive correlations between anxiety and negative affect, and between self-esteem with positive affect, and with perceived social support variables, (4) and also that negative affect consistently and positively predicted levels of anxiety, and positive affect consistently and negatively predicted levels of depressive mood, at 1, 2 and 4 months intervals.