Short-term and long-term influences of family arguments and gender difference on developing psychological well-being in Taiwanese adolescents

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Highlights

  • Family arguments and severed friendships have long-term effects on adolescent psychological well-being.

  • Family arguments have more weight on female adolescent psychological well-being than on males.

  • Severed friendships have more weight on male adolescent psychological well-being than on females.

  • Cigarette/alcohol use in early adolescence has the most effect on mental health.

Abstract

Adolescent mental health is crucial for social competence and accomplishment in later life. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that approximately 20% of adolescents suffer from psychological symptoms. However, improving family risk and school environments can largely promote adolescent mental health. A longitudinal survey was conducted to investigate adolescent psychological well-being (PWB) status and associated factors in adolescents 15–20 years of age. Family and school context variables were interviewed and recorded. A total of 2896 participants were included from high, middle, and less urbanized resident areas in Northern Taiwan with completed interview data. Using multivariate regression analysis, factors associated with adolescent PWB at various stages included quarrelsome parents, quarrels with parents, severed friendships, and cigarette and alcohol use. In all three adolescent stages, females yielded higher psychological symptom scores than did males, and diverse weights of risk factors on PWB were observed between genders. Family arguments and cigarette and alcohol use were found to have more pronounced effects on outcomes among females than males. Whereas males are more sensitive to severed friendships than females, cigarette and alcohol use showed more harmful effects on mental health in earlier adolescence than in later life. Moreover, family arguments and severed friendships in earlier adolescence were found to have lasting effects on PWB in later adolescence. In this study, gender differences were observed in the temporal relationship on adolescent mental health. Variables of family arguments and severed friendships exhibited short-term and long-term effects on adolescent mental health across the early to late developmental stages. The family argument environment and regulating cigarette and alcohol use are worthy of focus to promote adolescent mental health.

Introduction

Mental well-being is essential for adolescent development into a healthy adult with social competence (WHO, 2012). The World Health Organization estimates that approximately 20% of adolescents suffer from depression or anxiety (WHO, 2012). A review of the literature shows that the onset of psychological symptoms is occurring at a younger age on average than previously (Fergusson et al., 2011, Gilman et al., 2002). Mehler-Wex and Kölch (2008) indicated that 80% of children and adolescents who suffer from depression will relapse into depressive adults. Depression in adults may originate from the early life family environment (Gilman et al., 2002, Gilman et al., 2003). Data from recent studies also suggests that depression in young people may negatively affect their growth and social development and may be a crucial precursor to psychopathology in later life (Bhatia and Bhatia, 2007, Chang et al., 2007a, Chang et al., 2007b). Depression in early life is also found to be associated with later mental disorders such as anxiety disorder, oppositional disorder, substance use disorder and conduct disorder, characterized by high recurrence and high social costs (Barrera et al., 2007, Fergusson et al., 2011). Suicide in depressive adolescents and youth is a common and seriously fatal complication. The evidence substantiates that depression can onset during adolescence, in which youth suffer from invasive depression and bear the accompanied serious outcome of suicide (Jellinek & Snyder, 1998).

Other studies have indicated that risk factors for mental well-being in children and adolescents involve personal characteristics, and family and school environments (Wu, Kao, Yen, & Lee, 2007). Personal characteristics include gender, body weight, and sleeping behavior (Erickson, Robinson, Haydel, & Killen, 2000). Among the familial components, socioeconomic status, family climate (Gilman et al., 2002), parenting style, family conflict (Gunnlaugsson et al., 2011, Herrenkohl et al., 2009), and a history of depression in parents (Freres et al., 2002, Mesman and Koot, 2000) are typically mentioned in child and adolescent mental health research. Support from family and teachers has been shown to reduce the risk of psychological symptoms and anxiety in Latino youth (Potochnick & Perreira, 2010). Among the school environment factors, peer relationships, support, and academic performance have all been shown to affect children's mental health (Lin et al., 2008). In another study, children who had relatively few friends tended to experience psychological symptoms (Schwartz, Gorman, Duong, & Nakamoto, 2008).

Taiwanese adolescents also suffer from mental problems. National survey data in 1999 indicated that 30.5% of adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18 experienced depressive symptoms (Lue, Wu, & Yen, 2010). Research on measuring depressive symptoms conducted in 2007 revealed that nearly 24% of children were found to have depressive symptoms, and 4.2% of the children were reported to have major depressive disorders (Chang et al., 2007a, Chang et al., 2007b).

Longitudinal and time-trend studies are necessary to determine the risk factors of mental disorder problems in children and young people (Kessler, 2000, Pelkonen et al., 2008, Sourander et al., 2012), and to explore the critical causes of mental health problems during the various developmental stages of adolescents. The Taiwan Youth Project (TYP) conducted in 2000, investigated the psychological well-being (PWB) of the Taiwan urban/suburban/rural adolescent cohort, and analyzed family and school-related variables related to adolescent mental health during adolescent developmental stages. The primary goal of this research was to investigate the short and long-term influence of related family, school, and health behavior factors on the PWB of adolescents by analyzing the TYP cohort data during the development period.

Section snippets

Study population

Participants derived from annual interviews of the TYP, conducted by the Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, from 2000 through 2007.

The study population included 1984/5-birth and 1987/8-birth cohorts living in Northern Taiwan. The presented samples were collected using a schooled-based, stratified design from 40 junior high schools, 16 from urbanized Taipei City, 15 from suburbanized Taipei County, and nine from less-urbanized Yilan County. A total of 81 classes were chosen, with

Description of the sample

The total sample in this longitudinal investigation consisted of 2896 adolescents, including 1446 males and 1450 females. The descriptive characteristics are summarized in Table 1. Among them, approximately 38% lived in Taipei City with the highest urbanization, 35% in Taipei County with mid-urbanization, and 27% in less urbanized Yilan County. According to the 16-item PWB scale, the mean score of the participants was 25.0 (SD = 8.1) at the early-adolescent stage, 24.2 (SD = 7.8) at middle

Discussion

In this study, the PWB subscale SCL-90 score did not show significant fluctuation for adolescents during the three periods. However female adolescents exhibited worse outcome scores than did male adolescents across all developmental stages, which is consistent with other studies (Rawana and Morgan, 2014, Sze et al., 2013, Thapar et al., 2012). Moreover, we observed that the weights of associated risk factors differed between female and male adolescents on the PWB scores. For family arguments,

Conclusion

This research elucidated gender differences in the temporal relationships with cigarette/alcohol use and family and school environments on adolescent PWB, and provided solid evidence of the significant influence of the earlier developmental stage environment on adolescent mental health, such as family arguments, school friendships, and cigarette/alcohol use. Family arguments and severed friendships affect the mental health of contemporary adolescents and have long-term effects on adulthood. A

Acknowledgements

Taiwan Youth Project data used in this study are available for public use and we applied for the research with the approval of Academia Sinica in Taiwan (http://www.typ.sinica.edu.tw). We also gratefully acknowledged the instruction of Dr. Chin-Chun Yi for the TYP data.

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