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Teachers’ Perceptions of Student Mental Health in Eastern China: A Qualitative Study

In China, primary and secondary school teachers, known as ban zhu ren, have pastoral responsibility for the students in their class. The aim of this preliminary study is to identify how ban zhu ren perceive the mental health of their students, and how they have acted on these perceptions. Content an...

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Autores principales: Yao, Min, Kadetz, Paul I, Sidibe, Aissata Mahamadou, Wu, Yedong, Li, Jiameng, Lyu, Jinping, Ma, Cuiling, Hesketh, Therese
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8303108/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34299721
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18147271
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author Yao, Min
Kadetz, Paul I
Sidibe, Aissata Mahamadou
Wu, Yedong
Li, Jiameng
Lyu, Jinping
Ma, Cuiling
Hesketh, Therese
author_facet Yao, Min
Kadetz, Paul I
Sidibe, Aissata Mahamadou
Wu, Yedong
Li, Jiameng
Lyu, Jinping
Ma, Cuiling
Hesketh, Therese
author_sort Yao, Min
collection PubMed
description In China, primary and secondary school teachers, known as ban zhu ren, have pastoral responsibility for the students in their class. The aim of this preliminary study is to identify how ban zhu ren perceive the mental health of their students, and how they have acted on these perceptions. Content analysis was used to organize the data and distinguish categories or themes derived from in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted with 27 ban zhu ren from Zhejiang and Anhui provinces. Frequencies of informant responses were used to identify the areas of agreement and disagreement across identified categories and themes among the informants. The results illustrate that the informants consider issues, such as not paying attention in class (n = 14), not getting along well with classmates (n = 12), and excessive gaming (n = 11) to be indicative of mental illness, although these would commonly be considered normal adolescent behaviors. Fifteen informants admitted that they found it difficult to work with student mental health issues, and 18 felt they had inadequate or non-existent training. However, all informants stated that they had intervened with what they perceived to be students’ mental health issues, although only 9 informants had referred students for professional help. The informants reported that they were reluctant to provide referrals, due to the stigmatization they believed students would experience if given a diagnosis of mental illness. We conclude that among our informants there is a lack of agreement on what behavioral and mental health issues are, and that informants may be confusing what are, in actuality, non-conformist or non-compliant (yet often normal), adolescent behaviors with mental illness due to insufficient mental health training.
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spelling pubmed-83031082021-07-25 Teachers’ Perceptions of Student Mental Health in Eastern China: A Qualitative Study Yao, Min Kadetz, Paul I Sidibe, Aissata Mahamadou Wu, Yedong Li, Jiameng Lyu, Jinping Ma, Cuiling Hesketh, Therese Int J Environ Res Public Health Article In China, primary and secondary school teachers, known as ban zhu ren, have pastoral responsibility for the students in their class. The aim of this preliminary study is to identify how ban zhu ren perceive the mental health of their students, and how they have acted on these perceptions. Content analysis was used to organize the data and distinguish categories or themes derived from in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted with 27 ban zhu ren from Zhejiang and Anhui provinces. Frequencies of informant responses were used to identify the areas of agreement and disagreement across identified categories and themes among the informants. The results illustrate that the informants consider issues, such as not paying attention in class (n = 14), not getting along well with classmates (n = 12), and excessive gaming (n = 11) to be indicative of mental illness, although these would commonly be considered normal adolescent behaviors. Fifteen informants admitted that they found it difficult to work with student mental health issues, and 18 felt they had inadequate or non-existent training. However, all informants stated that they had intervened with what they perceived to be students’ mental health issues, although only 9 informants had referred students for professional help. The informants reported that they were reluctant to provide referrals, due to the stigmatization they believed students would experience if given a diagnosis of mental illness. We conclude that among our informants there is a lack of agreement on what behavioral and mental health issues are, and that informants may be confusing what are, in actuality, non-conformist or non-compliant (yet often normal), adolescent behaviors with mental illness due to insufficient mental health training. MDPI 2021-07-07 /pmc/articles/PMC8303108/ /pubmed/34299721 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18147271 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Yao, Min
Kadetz, Paul I
Sidibe, Aissata Mahamadou
Wu, Yedong
Li, Jiameng
Lyu, Jinping
Ma, Cuiling
Hesketh, Therese
Teachers’ Perceptions of Student Mental Health in Eastern China: A Qualitative Study
title Teachers’ Perceptions of Student Mental Health in Eastern China: A Qualitative Study
title_full Teachers’ Perceptions of Student Mental Health in Eastern China: A Qualitative Study
title_fullStr Teachers’ Perceptions of Student Mental Health in Eastern China: A Qualitative Study
title_full_unstemmed Teachers’ Perceptions of Student Mental Health in Eastern China: A Qualitative Study
title_short Teachers’ Perceptions of Student Mental Health in Eastern China: A Qualitative Study
title_sort teachers’ perceptions of student mental health in eastern china: a qualitative study
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8303108/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34299721
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18147271
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