Monitoring system of implementation of the Promoting Mental Health at Schools (PROMEHS) program.

Effective school-based mental health programs are a research field with growing interest and great social value. At the stage of development and initial testing of the program, as well as during dissemination, and adaptation in other cultures, it is important that the implementation is carried out in the way that was originally intended. Fidelity or adherence is the most often used concept relating to the extent to which the implemented intervention corresponds to the originally intended program. Therefore, monitoring of the implementation is an essential element necessary to integrate into contemporary evidence-based program. The current paper describes the monitoring system developed for the Promoting Mental Health at Schools (PROMEHS) project. The monitoring was done on both the structural and procedural aspects of the program's implementation, involving the evaluation of five core aspects: fidelity, dosage, quality, responsiveness, and adaptation. This methods article aims to describe the development of the monitoring system and to analyze the strengths of the qualitative-quantitative multi-informant approach in the monitoring of the intervention's implementation. In the future, this would support further research on effectiveness of the PROMEHS program.

Adolescent social emotional skills, resilience and behavioral problems during the COVID-19 pandemic: A longitudinal study in three European countries.

Objectives: The consequences of long-lasting restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic have become a topical question in the latest research. The present study aims to analyze longitudinal changes in adolescents' social emotional skills, resilience, and behavioral problems. Moreover, the study addresses the impact of adolescents' social emotional learning on changes in their resilience and behavioral problems over the course of seven months of the pandemic. Methods: The Time 1 (T1) and Time 2 (T2) measuring points were in October 2020 and May 2021, characterized by high mortality rates and strict restrictions in Europe. For all three countries combined, 512 questionnaires were answered by both adolescents (aged 11-13 and 14-16 years) and their parents. The SSIS-SEL and SDQ student self-report and parent forms were used to evaluate adolescents' social emotional skills and behavioral problems. The CD-RISC-10 scale was administered to adolescents to measure their self-reported resilience. Several multilevel models were fitted to investigate the changes in adolescents' social emotional skills, resilience, and behavioral problems, controlling for age and gender. Correlation analysis was carried out to investigate how changes in the adolescents' social emotional skills were associated with changes in their resilience and mental health adjustment. Results: Comparing T1 and T2 evaluations, adolescents claim they have more behavioral problems, have less social emotional skills, and are less prosocial than perceived by their parents, and this result applies across all countries and age groups. Both informants agree that COVID-19 had a negative impact, reporting an increment in the mean internalizing and externalizing difficulties scores and reductions in social emotional skills, prosocial behavior, and resilience scores. However, these changes are not very conspicuous, and most of them are not significant. Correlation analysis shows that changes in adolescents' social emotional skills are negatively and significantly related to changes in internalized and externalized problems and positively and significantly related to changes in prosocial behavior and resilience. This implies that adolescents who experienced larger development in social emotional learning also experienced more increase in resilience and prosocial behavior and a decrease in difficulties. Conclusion: Due to its longitudinal design, sample size, and multi-informant approach, this study adds to a deeper understanding of the pandemic's consequences on adolescents' mental health.

The effectiveness of a school-based, universal mental health programme in six European countries.

As children and young people today face ever increasing social, emotional and mental health challenges, schools, as one of the primary systems in children's lives, are called to broaden their agenda and help to address these challenges. This paper discusses the evaluation of a school-based, universal mental health promotion programme developed recently for the European context. The programme provides a universal curriculum from early years to high school, aiming to promote social and emotional learning and resilience and prevent social, emotional, and behavioural problems in children and adolescents. A total of 7,789 students (and their teachers and parents) from kindergarten to high school across 6 countries in Europe were recruited from 434 classrooms in 124 schools, making use of cluster sampling. A quasi-experimental longitudinal design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the programme on students' outcomes by comparing the groups' outcomes within times (pre-test vs. post-test) and between groups (experimental vs. control group). A total of 779 classroom teachers completed pre-and-post scales measuring students' social and emotional learning, mental health and academic achievement. Results indicate that the experimental group had significantly larger increase in social and emotional competence and prosocial behaviour, and a decrease in mental health issues (externalising and internalising problems). No significant impact was found for academic outcomes. The findings are discussed in view of the limitations of the study and areas for further research.

Social Emotional Competence, Learning Outcomes, Emotional and Behavioral Difficulties of Preschool Children: Parent and Teacher Evaluations.

This paper addresses the role of social emotional competence in the emotional and behavioral problems and learning outcomes of preschool children based on their parents' and teachers' evaluations. In this study, we compared the perceptions of teachers and parents when evaluating the same child using the multi-informant assessment. First, the associations and differences between both the informant evaluations were investigated. Second, the correlation of the social emotional competence and emotional, and behavioral difficulties among preschool children was analyzed, separately addressing their parents' and teachers' evaluations. Third, the role of the preschool children's social emotional competence in their emotional and behavioral problems, and learning outcomes was investigated building the regression and mediation models. The sample consisted of 507 preschool children (3-6 years, mean age 4.85 years, SD 0.82) and their parents and teachers. Both informants completed the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire and Social Skills Improvement System Social-Emotional Learning Brief Scales, and teachers reported on each child's learning outcomes (by completing a three-item Learning outcomes measure). When comparing both informants' evaluations, positive associations were found between teacher and parental evaluations of prosocial behavior and emotional, and behavioral difficulties of preschool children, as well as self-management. Parents evaluated their children higher than teachers in conduct problems, hyperactivity, prosocial behavior, and total difficulty, while teachers evaluated children higher than parents in social emotional competence. According to teachers, the social emotional competence of preschool children was negatively correlated to all difficulty scales, and positively related to the prosocial behavior scale. The demographic variables, as well as parental socioeconomic status and children's belonging to a vulnerable group were not found to be significantly associated with the preschool children's learning outcomes. However, social emotional competence remains a significant variable in teacher-rated learning outcomes of preschool children even if sociodemographic variables are controlled. Our findings indicate that a higher level of social emotional competence and lower levels of social, emotional, and behavioral difficulties are related to a higher preschoolers' academic learning in their teachers' evaluation. This suggests the importance of early facilitation of social emotional competence as a key factor for academic success and more positive behavioral outcomes.

Burnout Clinical Subtypes Questionnaire (BCSQ-36): reliability and validity study in Latvia.

The study aimed to test the validity of the burnout subtypes hierarchic model operationalized by the 'Burnout Clinical Subtypes Questionnaire' (BCSQ-36) and its applicability in other cultures. To that aim psychometric properties, factorial and convergent validity regarding the Maslach Burnout Inventory - General Survey (MBI-GS), and correlation with demographic factors were reviewed. A voluntary internet-based approach was used on a multi-occupational sample of adult Latvians (n = 394). The results of the internal consistency of the Latvian version of the BCSQ-36 exceeded .89 for all three subtypes. The CFA was used to test a hierarchical factorial model, and the analysis revealed an acceptable fit of the model to the data. Correlation analysis showed results as expected, similarly to the original sample - Underchallenged and Worn-out subtypes correlated with all MBI-GS scales, while Frenetic subtype did not correlate with the MBI-GS Cynicism scale. Besides, demographic data showed some correlation only on the subscale level. Overall research results provide support of the validity of the burnout subtypes hierarchical model and applicability in another culture.

Psychometric Comparisons of Benevolent and Corrective Humor across 22 Countries: The Virtue Gap in Humor Goes International.

Recently, two forms of virtue-related humor, benevolent and corrective, have been introduced. Benevolent humor treats human weaknesses and wrongdoings benevolently, while corrective humor aims at correcting and bettering them. Twelve marker items for benevolent and corrective humor (the BenCor) were developed, and it was demonstrated that they fill the gap between humor as temperament and virtue. The present study investigates responses to the BenCor from 25 samples in 22 countries (overall N = 7,226). The psychometric properties of the BenCor were found to be sufficient in most of the samples, including internal consistency, unidimensionality, and factorial validity. Importantly, benevolent and corrective humor were clearly established as two positively related, yet distinct dimensions of virtue-related humor. Metric measurement invariance was supported across the 25 samples, and scalar invariance was supported across six age groups (from 18 to 50+ years) and across gender. Comparisons of samples within and between four countries (Malaysia, Switzerland, Turkey, and the UK) showed that the item profiles were more similar within than between countries, though some evidence for regional differences was also found. This study thus supported, for the first time, the suitability of the 12 marker items of benevolent and corrective humor in different countries, enabling a cumulative cross-cultural research and eventually applications of humor aiming at the good.

Risk factors for unwanted pregnancy and subsequent abortion among women aged 16 to 25 years in Latvia.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the risk factors associated with unwanted pregnancy in 16- to 25-year-old women in Latvia. METHODS: Case-control study of 16- to 25-year-old, sexually active women who did not want to get pregnant: the cases were 144 women who underwent their first abortion whereas 278 nulliparous women served as controls. Data concerning them were obtained by using a semi-structured anonymous questionnaire that included questions about education, sexual life habits, contraceptive practice and a multiple-choice test to assess knowledge about contraception. RESULTS: Women who underwent an abortion had had more lifetime sexual partners, had more often not used any contraception, and were significantly less knowledgeable about the latter than controls. No strong correlation between knowledge and actual contraceptive practice was observed in the study groups. Logistic regression analysis showed that the most significant risk factors were non-use of contraception or use of less effective methods. CONCLUSIONS: The risk of unwanted pregnancy was associated with the woman's behaviour; her knowledge of contraception was much less relevant. Sexual health programmes should focus more on intrapersonal and interpersonal factors to promote use of effective contraception among young women.