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Frequency, stability and differentiation of self-reported school fear and truancy in a community sample

BACKGROUND: Surprisingly little is known about the frequency, stability, and correlates of school fear and truancy based on self-reported data of adolescents. METHODS: Self-reported school fear and truancy were studied in a total of N = 834 subjects of the community-based Zurich Adolescent Psycholog...

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Autores principales: Steinhausen, Hans-Christoph, Müller, Nora, Metzke, Christa Winkler
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2008
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2490679/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18625042
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1753-2000-2-17
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author Steinhausen, Hans-Christoph
Müller, Nora
Metzke, Christa Winkler
author_facet Steinhausen, Hans-Christoph
Müller, Nora
Metzke, Christa Winkler
author_sort Steinhausen, Hans-Christoph
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Surprisingly little is known about the frequency, stability, and correlates of school fear and truancy based on self-reported data of adolescents. METHODS: Self-reported school fear and truancy were studied in a total of N = 834 subjects of the community-based Zurich Adolescent Psychology and Psychopathology Study (ZAPPS) at two times with an average age of thirteen and sixteen years. Group definitions were based on two behavioural items of the Youth Self-Report (YSR). Comparisons included a control group without indicators of school fear or truancy. The three groups were compared across questionnaires measuring emotional and behavioural problems, life-events, self-related cognitions, perceived parental behaviour, and perceived school environment. RESULTS: The frequency of self-reported school fear decreased over time (6.9 vs. 3.6%) whereas there was an increase in truancy (5.0 vs. 18.4%). Subjects with school fear displayed a pattern of associated internalizing problems and truants were characterized by associated delinquent behaviour. Among other associated psychosocial features, the distress coming from the perceived school environment in students with school fear is most noteworthy. CONCLUSION: These findings from a community study show that school fear and truancy are frequent and display different developmental trajectories. Furthermore, previous results are corroborated which are based on smaller and selected clinical samples indicating that the two groups display distinct types of school-related behaviour.
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spelling pubmed-24906792008-07-30 Frequency, stability and differentiation of self-reported school fear and truancy in a community sample Steinhausen, Hans-Christoph Müller, Nora Metzke, Christa Winkler Child Adolesc Psychiatry Ment Health Research BACKGROUND: Surprisingly little is known about the frequency, stability, and correlates of school fear and truancy based on self-reported data of adolescents. METHODS: Self-reported school fear and truancy were studied in a total of N = 834 subjects of the community-based Zurich Adolescent Psychology and Psychopathology Study (ZAPPS) at two times with an average age of thirteen and sixteen years. Group definitions were based on two behavioural items of the Youth Self-Report (YSR). Comparisons included a control group without indicators of school fear or truancy. The three groups were compared across questionnaires measuring emotional and behavioural problems, life-events, self-related cognitions, perceived parental behaviour, and perceived school environment. RESULTS: The frequency of self-reported school fear decreased over time (6.9 vs. 3.6%) whereas there was an increase in truancy (5.0 vs. 18.4%). Subjects with school fear displayed a pattern of associated internalizing problems and truants were characterized by associated delinquent behaviour. Among other associated psychosocial features, the distress coming from the perceived school environment in students with school fear is most noteworthy. CONCLUSION: These findings from a community study show that school fear and truancy are frequent and display different developmental trajectories. Furthermore, previous results are corroborated which are based on smaller and selected clinical samples indicating that the two groups display distinct types of school-related behaviour. BioMed Central 2008-07-14 /pmc/articles/PMC2490679/ /pubmed/18625042 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1753-2000-2-17 Text en Copyright © 2008 Steinhausen et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research
Steinhausen, Hans-Christoph
Müller, Nora
Metzke, Christa Winkler
Frequency, stability and differentiation of self-reported school fear and truancy in a community sample
title Frequency, stability and differentiation of self-reported school fear and truancy in a community sample
title_full Frequency, stability and differentiation of self-reported school fear and truancy in a community sample
title_fullStr Frequency, stability and differentiation of self-reported school fear and truancy in a community sample
title_full_unstemmed Frequency, stability and differentiation of self-reported school fear and truancy in a community sample
title_short Frequency, stability and differentiation of self-reported school fear and truancy in a community sample
title_sort frequency, stability and differentiation of self-reported school fear and truancy in a community sample
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2490679/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18625042
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1753-2000-2-17
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