LIFE SATISFACTION IN CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS AS A POSITIVE INDICATOR OF MENTAL HEALTH
Background:One in five children experience a serious mental health disorder and fifty percent of all mental health disorders onset before age fourteen, making mental health disorders a chronic disease of childhood and adolescence. Children and adolescents with mental health disorders are at greater risk for academic failure, impaired relationships, legal problems, and substance abuse. In contemporary clinical practice far more attention is given to psychopathology or negative indicators of mental health compared to life satisfaction or positive indicators of mental health. Yet studies involving mental health report that negative and positive indicators are not opposing ends of a single continuum, but are instead different co-occurring constructs. In essence, mental well-being does not equate with the absence of psychopathology and the absence of psychopathology does not equal mental well-being.
Methods: A systematic review of the literature was conducted using life satisfaction, mental health and child/adolescent as combined key words in PsycInfo, MEDLINE, Psychology and Behavioral Science Collection, and SocIndex with Full Text. The search was limited to English language from1980 to 2014. A total of 383 articles were initially obtained. Only articles with life satisfaction in the title (n=74) were accepted for initial content review. A reverse citation search of references from key studies was also completed. The final sample (n=30) included research studies measuring life satisfaction in children and/or adolescent participants age 8 to 18 years. Priority was given to integrated studies measuring both negative (psychopathology) and positive (life satisfaction) indicators.
Outcomes: The outcomes of examining life satisfaction as a positive indicator of mental health are organized into three categories: 1) the differentiation of overlapping concepts including subjective well-being, quality of life, and life satisfaction, 2) correlates of life satisfaction, and 3) an introduction to measures of life satisfaction, while emphasizing one measure – the Multidimensional Student’s Life Satisfaction Scale (MSLSS)- that may be ideally suited for assessment of positive indicators in child/adolescent mental health for both clinical and research practice.
Conclusion: Life satisfaction may be a positive indicator for assessing mental health in children and adolescents. In particular, the MSLSS can be used to identify areas of potential psychosocial vulnerability and risk, as well as areas of current strength and resilience – thus facilitating early identification and prevention strategies.