The Montana Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) is administered by the Montana Office of Public Instruction every two years to students in grades 7 through 12. The purpose of the survey is to help monitor the prevalence of behaviors that not only influence youth health, but also put youth at risk for the most significant health and social problems…

Parenting behaviors have been linked to children's self regulation, but it is less clear how they relate to adolescent psychological flexibility. Psychological flexibility is a broad construct that describes an individual's ability to respond appropriately to environmental demands and internal experiences in the service of their goals. We examined…

Cyber-bullying is a significant problem for children today. This study provides evidence of the psychological impact of cyber-bullying among victimized children ages 10 to 17 years (M = 12.48, SD = 1.79) from 23 urban schools in a western province of Canada (N = 239). Students who were cyber-bullied reported high levels of anxious,…

The present study compared psychological adjustment of 158 adolescents with vision impairment and 158 sighted adolescents with a matched-pair design using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Adolescent self-reports and teacher reports on emotional problems, peer problems, and total difficulties showed higher scores in students with…

This study explores the trajectory of suicidal ideation in childhood and adolescence and identifies its strong predictors. Secondary data obtained from two nationally representative cohorts of South Korean youth were longitudinally analyzed using frequencies, percentages, and discrete time survival analysis. This study revealed an increase in the…

This longitudinal study tested the "influence of involvement" and "selection" hypotheses for the association between religious versus non-religious activity involvement and two salient indicators of adolescent psychosocial adjustment (substance use and academic achievement). Participants included 3,993 Canadian adolescents…

We examined the impact of risk and protective factors on the odds that African American adolescents seriously think about or attempt suicide. Data from students in grades 5-12 in a mostly urban, southeastern U.S. school district were analyzed. Findings support earlier work documenting differences in gender and grades. Risk factors were uniformly…

Sexual coercion in peer dating relationships was studied among 341 Year 11-12 high school students via the Adolescent Dating and Relationship Survey. Nearly 50% of females and 70% of males had relationships with similar aged partners. However, more females dated older partners and more males dated younger partners. Females also reported longer…

Existing research posits multiple dimensions of bullying and victimization but has not identified well-differentiated facets of these constructs that meet standards of good measurement: goodness of fit, measurement invariance, lack of differential item functioning, and well-differentiated factors that are not so highly correlated as to detract…

Background: Adolescence may be a crucial period for developing obesity and associated mental health problems. This study examined the relationship of weight status on body image, eating behavior, and depressive symptoms in youth. Methods: A survey was conducted on 1490 youth attending grades 7-12. Participants completed questionnaires on body…

Background: The purpose of this study is to compare the mental health risk profile and health utilization behaviors of adolescent school-based health center (SBHC) users and nonusers and discuss the role that SBHCs can play in addressing adolescent health needs. Methods: The sample included 4640 students in grades 9 and 11 who completed the…

All school children experience stress at some point in their school careers. This study investigates whether dyslexic children, by way of their educational and social difficulties, experience higher levels of stress at school. The School Situation Survey was used to investigate both the sources and manifestations of stress amongst dyslexic…

Background: The aims of this study were to identify the independent factors associated with intermittent addiction and addiction to the Internet and to examine the psychiatric symptoms in Korean adolescents when the demographic and Internet-related factors were controlled. Methods: Male and female students (N = 912) in the 7th-12th grades were…

To understand the co-occurrence of multiple types of violence, the authors developed a behavioral typology based on self-reports of suicidal behaviors, physical violence, and psychological abuse. Using a sample of dating adolescents from a high-risk school district, they identified five clusters of behaviors among the 1,653 students who reported…

Objectives: To examine the prevalence of bullying behavior in adolescents from Cape Town and Durban, South Africa, and the association of these behaviors with levels of violence and risk behavior. Method: Five thousand and seventy-four adolescent schoolchildren in grade 8 (mean age 14.2 years) and grade 11 (mean age 17.4 years) at 72 Government…