Adolescents' mental health during the financial crisis in Greece: The first epidemiological data.

Greek financial crisis has incurred adverse effects on the mental health of the population; however existing research is constrained in the adult population. Therefore, the present study aims to shed light on the mental health state of adolescents during the recession. In this context 2,150 adolescents were recruited from a random and representative sample of public and private schools in the greater Athens area. Mental health problems were assessed with the selfreport Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire while additional questions enquired about students' socio-demographic characteristics. Findings indicate that roughly one out of ten adolescents scored above the cut off point for the total difficulties score, with the higher prevalence been recorded for the conduct problems sub-scale. More specifically, 7.7% of the sample scored above the abnormal cut-off point for the total difficulties score, 10.9% for emotional symptoms, 11.9% for conduct problems, 10.6% for hyperactivity and 4.8% for peer problems. Furthermore, adolescents who reported that during the previous month there was not enough food in their house displayed higher odds of manifesting mental health problems than adolescents who replied negatively in the particular query. On the grounds of these results, there is indication about the adverse effects of the financial crisis in the development of psychiatric symptomatology in adolescents in the Greek society. This is the first study providing epidemiological data on the current state of adolescents' mental health amid the recession in Greece, showing that the crisis impinges disproportionately on the most vulnerable socio-economic groups.

Assessing the psychometric and ecometric properties of neighborhood scales using adolescent survey data from urban and rural Scotland.

BACKGROUND: Despite the well-established need for specific measurement instruments to examine the relationship between neighborhood conditions and adolescent well-being outcomes, few studies have developed scales to measure features of the neighborhoods in which adolescents reside. Moreover, measures of neighborhood features may be operationalised differently by adolescents living in different levels of urban/rurality. This has not been addressed in previous studies. The objectives of this study were to: 1) establish instruments to measure adolescent neighborhood features at both the individual and neighborhood level, 2) assess their psychometric and ecometric properties, 3) test for invariance by urban/rurality, and 4) generate neighborhood level scores for use in further analysis. METHODS: Data were from the Scottish 2010 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Survey, which included an over-sample of rural adolescents. The survey responses of interest came from questions designed to capture different facets of the local area in which each respondent resided. Intermediate data zones were used as proxies for neighborhoods. Internal consistency was evaluated by Cronbach's alpha. Invariance was examined using confirmatory factor analysis. Multilevel models were used to estimate ecometric properties and generate neighborhood scores. RESULTS: Two constructs labeled neighborhood social cohesion and neighborhood disorder were identified. Adjustment was made to the originally specified model to improve model fit and measures of invariance. At the individual level, reliability was .760 for social cohesion and .765 for disorder, and between .524 and .571 for both constructs at the neighborhood level. Individuals in rural areas experienced greater neighborhood social cohesion and lower levels of neighborhood disorder compared with those in urban areas. CONCLUSION: The scales are appropriate for measuring neighborhood characteristics experienced by adolescents across urban and rural Scotland, and can be used in future studies of neighborhoods and health. However, trade-offs between neighborhood sample size and reliability must be considered.

Does school social capital modify socioeconomic inequality in mental health? A multi-level analysis in Danish schools.

It seems that social capital in the neighbourhood has the potential to reduce socioeconomic differences in mental health among adolescents. Whether school social capital is a buffer in the association between socioeconomic position and mental health among adolescents remains uncertain. The aim of this study is therefore to examine if the association between socioeconomic position and emotional symptoms among adolescents is modified by school social capital. The Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Methodology Development Study 2012 provided data on 3549 adolescents aged 11-15 in two municipalities in Denmark. Trust in the school class was used as an indicator of school social capital. Prevalence of daily emotional symptoms in each socioeconomic group measured by parents' occupational class was calculated for each of the three categories of school classes: school classes with high trust, moderate trust and low trust. Multilevel logistic regression analyses with parents' occupational class as the independent variable and daily emotional symptoms as the dependent variable were conducted stratified by level of trust in the school class. The prevalence of emotional symptoms was higher among students in school classes with low trust (12.9%) compared to school classes with high trust (7.2%) (p < 0.01). In school classes with low level of trust, the odds ratio for daily emotional symptoms was 1.89 (95% CI 1.25-2.86) in the low socioeconomic group compared to the high socioeconomic group. In school classes characterised by high and moderate trust, there were no statistically significant differences in emotional symptoms between high and low socioeconomic groups. Although further studies are needed, this cross-sectional study suggests that school social capital may reduce mental health problems and diminish socioeconomic inequality in mental health among adolescents.

Association between health-related quality of life and being an immigrant among adolescents, and the role of socioeconomic and health-related difficulties.

To develop satisfactorily, adolescents require good health-related quality of life (QOL, including physical health, psychological health, social relationships and living environment). However, for poorly understood reasons, it is often lacking, especially among immigrants with lower family and socioeconomic resources. This study assessed health-related QOL of European and non-European immigrant adolescents and the contributions of socioeconomic difficulties, unhealthy behaviors, and violence. It included 1,559 middle-school adolescents from north-eastern France (mean age 13.5, SD 1.3; 1,451 French adolescents, 54 European immigrants and 54 non-European immigrants), who completed a self-administered questionnaire including sex, age, socioeconomic characteristics (family structure, parents' education, occupation, and income), unhealthy behaviors (uses of tobacco/alcohol/cannabis/hard drugs, obesity, and involvement in violence), having sustained violence, sexual abuse, and the four QOL domains measured with the World Health Organization's WHOQOL-BREF (poor: score < 25PthP percentile). Data were analyzed using logistic regression models. Poor physical health, psychological health, social relationships, and living environment affected more European immigrants (26% to 35%) and non-European immigrants (43% to 54%) than French adolescents (21% to 26%). European immigrants had a higher risk of poor physical health and living environment (gender-age-adjusted odds ratio 2.00 and 1.88, respectively) while non-European immigrants had a higher risk for all poor physical health, psychological health, social relationships, and living environment (3.41, 2.07, 3.25, and 3.79, respectively). Between 20% and 58% of these risks were explained by socioeconomic difficulties, parts of which overlapped with unhealthy behaviors and violence. The associations between the two sets of covariates greatly differed among French adolescents and immigrants. Poor QOL was more common among European and non-European immigrants due to socioeconomic difficulties and associated unhealthy behaviors and violence. The different risk patterns observed between French adolescents and immigrants may help prevention.

Return of separated children: the impact of Dutch policies.

In many European countries, both the voluntary and the forced return of rejected asylum seekers are problematic. In the case of separated children, the difficulties seem to be even greater. In the Netherlands, many of these children disappear from the reception centres for unknown destinations, instead of returning to their home country. The new, stricter return policies adopted by the Dutch government in recent years have not (yet) changed this situation.In an explorative study of separated children aged between 15 and 18, the implementation and results of these policies were studied. The impact of the activities designed to promote voluntary return appeared to be very limited. Most separated young people did not want to consider return and did not take any action in this regard. Forced return rarely constituted a viable alternative. These findings may be explained by several factors. Among other things, considerations pertaining to personal security, family circumstances, and structural conditions in the countries of origin influence both the attitudes and behaviours of separated children, and host government policies. Moreover, many children were not willing to discuss their return with the youth care workers who were supposed to discuss and promote a voluntary return with them. The fact that most of the young people were allowed to stay in the reception centres until their eighteenth birthday enabled them to postpone making a final decision. A forced return was hindered by such obstacles as the absence of documents and the lack of appropriate care in the country of origin. More insight into the backgrounds of separated children and the (im)possibilities regarding their return seems necessary to be able to design more effective return policies.

Consequences of black exceptionalism? Interracial unions with blacks, depressive symptoms, and relationship satisfaction.

Using data from Wave 4 (2008) of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N = 7,466), we examine potential consequences of black exceptionalism in the context of interracial relationships among nonblack respondents. While increasing racial diversity and climbing rates of interracial unions have fostered the notion that racial boundaries within the United States are fading, our results add to the accumulating evidence that racial/ethnic boundaries persist in U.S. society. Results suggest that among non-Black respondents there is more stigma and disapproval attached to relationships with Blacks than there are to relationships with members of other racial/ethnic groups. Specifically, our results indicate that nonblack individuals with black partners have significantly more depressive symptoms and less relationship satisfaction than their counterparts with nonblack partners, regardless of respondent race and whether the nonblack partner is the same versus a different race from the respondent. Further, the relationship between partner race and depressive symptoms is partially and significantly mediated by relationship satisfaction.

"Children of the city": juvenile justice, property, and place in England and Scotland, 1945-60.

This article uses cases studies of Dundee and Manchester to explain juvenile property-offending in terms of young people's use of objects and spaces in the period 1945-60. A composite picture is assembled of objects stolen, which reflects growth of the specifically "teenage" consumer market as well as continued significance of young people's contribution to family economies. Concerns about youth, property, and space were reported in newspapers in terms of vandalism and hooliganism. "Play" and "nuisance" were overlapping and contested categories; re-education of young people in the correct use of place, space, and property was a key aim of the postwar juvenile justice system.

Family transitions and juvenile delinquency.

There is a large body of research that shows children from non-intact homes show higher rates of juvenile delinquency than children from intact homes, partially due to weaker parental control and supervision in non-intact homes. What has not been adequately addressed in the research is the influence of changes in family structure among individual adolescents over time on delinquent offending. Using the first and third waves of the National Youth Study, we assess the effect of family structure changes on changes in delinquent offending between waves through the intermediate process of changes in family time and parental attachment. Although prior research has documented adolescents in broken homes are more delinquent than youth in intact homes, the process of family dissolution is not associated with concurrent increases in offending. In contrast, family formation through marriage or cohabitation is associated with simultaneous increases in offending. Changes in family time and parental attachment account for a portion of the family formation effect on delinquency, and prior parental attachment and juvenile offending significantly condition the effect of family formation on offending.

"Use" them or "lose" them: engaging Liberia's disconnected youth through socio-political integration .

The war that ravaged Liberia between 1989 and 2003 had myriad causes and belligerents, but there can be little question of the demographic cohort that provided the manpower for the war machine: youth. Young, disconnected Liberians became easy recruits to the conflict's warring factions as they sought a sense of importance and independence away from the cultural background that marginalized them. Building on qualitative field research in Liberia, this article bridges its primary case study with theory and secondary data, to examine the threat of post-war re-marginalization and disengagement of youth in the country. The article argues that economic reintegration programmes have not addressed issues of youth empowerment directly enough, and that targeted political and social engagement strategies from a vertical and horizontal integration perspective would be more effective in the re-engagement of youth in civilian life.

Tackling tensions and ambivalences: Armenian girls' diasporic identities in Russia.

Research on diasporic youth identities in the British and American context has stressed hybridity, heterogeneity and multiplicity. This paper draws upon ethnographic research undertaken with Armenian girls to explore some of the tensions and ambivalences of negotiating diasporic identities in the Russian context. Diasporic identities are constructed through gender, and this paper illustrates how research participants negotiate their identities in relation to both belonging to the Armenian community and wider Russian society. At the same time, this paper examines how research participants draw differently on diasporic identifications in order to overcome tensions and ambivalences in their everyday lives. The paper shows that research participants are not inclined to reject their cultural roots in favor of new hybrid identities, but are able to recognize and appropriate different cultures in their identity negotiations.

Caribbean and Filipino adolescents' and parents' perceptions of parental authority, physical punishment, and cultural values and their relation to migratory characteristics.

This article describes the perceptions of parents and adolescents of physical punishment in relation to family and migratory characteristics. Adolescents and their parents of Caribbean (n=118) and of Filipino (n=136) heritage responded to questions on their attitude toward physical discipline, their family relations, and their socio-demographic and migratory characteristics. Data analyses show that many Caribbean (78%) and Filipino (41.9%) parents perceive that they should have the right to physically punish their children, while youth disagree with this. The dissonance between parents' and their children's attitudes is related to acculturation factors due to the earlier and more intense exposure of youth to their host society. Further studies should be conducted on the impact of the divergence between parents and their youth's opinions on the actual shifts in power in the parent-child relationship, as well as on immigrant parents' discipline strategies and on the family's adaptation to the challenges of migration.

The interface between publicly funded and industry-funded research in pediatric psychopharmacology: opportunities for integration and collaboration.

Pediatric psychopharmacology research is undergoing a major expansion consequent to increasing use of psychotropic medications in children and recent legislative incentives to industry. In this rapidly changing context, the interface between publicly and privately funded research needs to be reconsidered to integrate activities and avoid unnecessary duplication of efforts. Once, by default, the almost exclusive domain of public research, child research is now increasingly funded by industry. There are, however, important issues unlikely to be addressed through private funding for which public support is needed, such as direct comparisons between active medications, between pharmacological and psychosocial interventions, or between combined and single treatment modalities; development of effective treatment strategies for patients unresponsive to first-line treatments; development of better research methods to assess efficacy and safety; identification of moderators and mechanisms of treatment response; and impact of treatment on illness course and prognosis. Industry-sponsored research is limited by the restricted access to proprietary databases, which impedes independent analyses and meta-analyses. Translation of basic neuroscience discoveries into treatment applications for children with mental illness is a critical area of inquiry that can benefit from integration of efforts and collaborations among academia, government, and industry.