Abstract
Despite increasing interest in the role of positive psychology in youth development, its application into school-based mental health care has been limited. The South Korean government has implemented a national mental health screening for primary and secondary schools, but this initiative focuses on the identification and treatment of distress symptoms with little attention given to psychological strengths. The current study explored the use of complete mental health screening—integrating positive and negative indicators of mental health—in six primary schools in Seoul, South Korea. Using automatic three-step latent profile analyses, underlying profiles of complete mental health among Korean primary school students were identified. The relations between the identified profiles and life satisfaction were also examined. Results identified four subtypes of complete mental health. Students with higher psychological strengths were more likely to experience higher life satisfaction. Implications for researchers and practitioners are discussed.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Antaramian, S. P., Huebner, E. S., Hills, K. J., & Valois, R. F. (2010). A dual-factor model of mental health: Toward a more comprehensive understanding of youth functioning. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 80, 462–472. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1939-0025.2010.01049.x.
Asparouhov, T., & Muthén, B. (2013). Auxiliary variables in mixture modeling: A 3-step approach using Mplus [Online web notes]. Available from: http://statmodel.com/examples/webnotes/AuxMixture_submitted_corrected_webnote.pdf
Bruhn, A. L., Woods-Groves, S., & Huddle, S. (2014). A preliminary investigation of emotional and behavioral screening practices in K-12 schools. Education and Treatment of Children, 37, 611–634. https://doi.org/10.1353/etc.2014.0039.
Chou, C., & Bentler, P. M. (1995). Estimates and tests in structural equation modeling. In R. H. Hoyle (Ed.), Structural equation modeling: Concepts, issues, and applications (pp. 37–55). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Curran, P. J., West, S. G., & Finch, J. F. (1996). The robustness of test statistics to nonnormality and specification error in confirmatory factor analysis. Psychological Methods, 1, 16–29. https://doi.org/10.1037/1082-989X.1.1.16.
Deighton, J., Tymms, P., Vostanis, P., Belsky, J., Fonagy, P., Brown, A., Martin, A., Patalay, P., & Wolpert, M. (2013). The development of a school-based measure of child mental health. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 31, 247–257. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734282912465570.
DiStefano, C., & Kamphaus, R. W. (2006). Investigating subtypes of child development: A comparison of cluster analysis and latent class cluster analysis in typology creation. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 66, 778–794. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013164405284033.
Enders, C. K., & Bandalos, D. L. (2001). The relative performance of full information maximum likelihood estimation for missing data in structural equation models. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 8, 430–457. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15328007SEM0803_5.
Funk, B., Huebner, E., & Valois, R. (2006). Reliability and validity of a brief life satisfaction scale with a high school sample. Journal of Happiness Studies, 7, 41–54. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-005-0869-7.
Furlong, M. J., You, S., Renshaw, T. L., O’Malley, M. D., & Rebelez, J. (2013). Preliminary development of the positive experiences at school scale for elementary school children. Child Indicators Research, 6, 753–775. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-013-9193-7.
Goodenow, C. (1993). The psychological sense of school membership among adolescents: Scale development and educational correlates. Psychology in the Schools, 30, 79–90. https://doi.org/10.1002/1520-6807(199301)30:1<79::AID-PITS2310300113>3.0.CO;2-X.
Greenspoon, P. J., & Saklofske, D. H. (2001). Toward an integration of subjective well-being and psychopathology. Social Indicators Research, 54, 81–108. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1007219227883.
Huebner, E. S. (1994). Preliminary development and validation of a multidimensional life scale for children. Psychological Assessment, 6, 149–158. https://doi.org/10.1037/1040-3590.6.2.14.
Jahoda, M. (1958). Current concepts of positive mental health. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Kelly, R. M., Hills, K. J., Huebner, E. S., & McQuillin, S. (2012). The longitudinal stability and dynamics of group membership in the dual-factor model of mental health: Psychosocial predictors of mental health. Canadian Journal of School Psychology, 27, 337–355. https://doi.org/10.1177/0829573512458505.
Keyes, C. L. M., & Michalec, B. (2010). Viewing mental health from the complete state paradigm. In T. L. Schied & T. N. Brown (Eds.), A handbook for the study of mental health: Social contexts, theories, and systems (pp. 125–134). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Kim, E., Furlong, M. J., Dowdy, E., & Felix, D. E. (2014). Exploring the relative contributions of the strength and distress components of dual-factor complete mental health screening. Canadian Journal of School Psychology, 29, 127–140. https://doi.org/10.1177/0829573514529567.
Kim, E., Dowdy, E., Furlong, M. J., & You, S. (2017). Multiple profiles of mental health and. quality of life among Korean adolescents. School Psychology International, 38, 98–116. https://doi.org/10.1177/0143034316682296.
LeBuffe, P. A., & Shapiro, V. B. (2004). Lending “strength” to the assessment of preschool social-emotional health. The California School Psychologist, 9, 51–61. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03340907.
Lo, Y., Mendell, N., & Rubin, D. (2001). Testing the number of components in a normal mixture. Biometrika, 88, 767–778. https://doi.org/10.1093/biomet/88.3.767.
Lyons, M. D., Huebner, E. S., Hills, K. J., & Shinkareva, S. V. (2012). The dual-factor model of mental health: Further study of the determinants of group differences. Canadian Journal of School Psychology, 27, 183–196. https://doi.org/10.1177/0829573512443669.
McLachlan, G., & Peel, D. (2000). Finite mixture models. New York, NY: Wiley.
Muthén, L. K., & Muthén, B. O. (1998-2012). Mplus statistical analysis with latent variables: User’s guide (7th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Authors.
Nylund, K., Asparouhov, T., & Muthen, B. (2007). Deciding on the number of classes in latent class analysis and growth mixture modeling: A Monte Carlo simulation study. Structural Equation Modeling: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 14, 535–569. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705510701575396.
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2014). PISA 2012 results in focus: What 15-year-olds know and what they can do with what they know. Available from www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/pisa-2012-results-overview.pdf
Patalay, P., Deighton, J., Fonagy, P., Vostanis, P., & Wolpert, M. (2014). Clinical validity of the me and my school questionnaire: A self-report mental health measure for children and adolescents. Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health, 8, 17. https://doi.org/10.1186/1753-2000-8-17.
Rees, G., & Main, G. (2015). Children’s views on their lives and well-being in 15 countries: A report on the Children’s Worlds survey, 2013–14. York, UK: Children’s Worlds Project (ISCWeB).
Reynolds, C. R., & Kamphaus, R. W. (1992). BASC: Behavior assessment system for children. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service.
Schwarz, G. (1978). Estimating the dimension of a model. Annals of Statistics, 6, 461–464. https://doi.org/10.1214/aos/1176344136.
Sclove, L. (1987). Application of model-selection criteria to some problems in multivariate analysis. Psychometrika, 52, 333–343. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02294360.
Seligman, M. E. P. (1998). Learned optimism (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Pocket Books.
Seligson, J. L., Huebner, E. S., & Valois, R. F. (2003). Preliminary validation of the brief multidimensional students’ life satisfaction scale (BMSLSS). Social Indicators Research, 61, 121–145. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1021326822957.
Seligson, J. L., Huebner, E. S., & Valois, R. F. (2005). An investigation of a brief life satisfaction scale with elementary school children. Social Indicators Research, 73, 355–374. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-004-2011-3.
Suldo, S. M., & Shaffer, E. J. (2008). Looking beyond psychopathology: The dual-factor model of mental health in youth. School Psychology Review, 37, 52–68.
Venning, A., Wilson, A., Kettler, L., & Eliott, J. (2013). Mental health among youth in South Australia: A survey of flourishing, languishing, struggling, and floundering. Australian Psychologist, 48, 299–310. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1742-9544.2012.00068.x.
Wang, C., Yang, C., Jiang, X., & Furlong, M. J. (2017). Validation of Chinese version of the Social Emotional Health Survey-Primary. International Journal of School & Educational Psychology. First online: 09 June 2017. https://doi.org/10.1080/21683603.2016.1272026.
Wilkins, B., Boman, P., & Mergler, A. (2015). Positive psychological strengths and school engagement in primary school children. Cogent Education, 2, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186X.2015.1095680.
Zullig, K. J., Valois, R. F., Huebner, E. S., Oeltmann, J. E., & Drane, J. W. (2001). Relationship between perceived life satisfaction and adolescents’ substance abuse. Journal of Adolescent Health, 29, 279–288. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1054-139X(01)00269-5.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kim, E.K., Dowdy, E., Furlong, M.M. et al. Complete Mental Health Screening: Psychological Strengths and Life Satisfaction in Korean Students. Child Ind Res 12, 901–915 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-018-9561-4
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-018-9561-4