| 1. |
- Buli, Benti Geleta
(författare)
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Mental health problems among adolescents in Sweden : Analysis of trends, developmental trajectories, and associated factors
- 2024
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The overall aim of this thesis was to investigate trends and trajectories of mental health problems and associated factors among adolescents in Sweden. The project consisted of four studies, with the first presenting trends and the subsequent ones exploring influencing factors. The first two studies used data from SALVe, repeated cross-sectional surveys from 2004 – 2020, while the third used national HBSC data from 2002 – 2018. Study IV was based on data from SALVe cohorts conducted among young people born in 1997 and 1999 where data were collected in four waves every three years from 2012 – 2021. Study I investigated trends in mental health problems among adolescents in Västmanland County, revealing an overall decrease but disparities based on socioeconomic status (SES) and sex. Higher SES was associated with reduced mental health problems, while lower SES showed an increase. Girls exhibited a more pronounced decrease in depressive symptoms and suicidal ideations than boys. Study II, using the same dataset, confirmed these trends and identified school-related factors influencing mental health problems, with improvements correlating with reduced problems in the high SES group. Study III found a significant increase in PSS over time, higher in girls, and linked to lifestyle factors, particularly alcohol drunkenness among high SES adolescents. Study IV focused on cohorts born in 1997 and 1999, exploring the impact of family and peer relationships on depressive and anxiety symptoms among young people.The results indicate that intermediary factors, including school-related factors, lifestyle choices, and social relationships, which vary across SES gradients, are linked to adolescent mental health problems. The associations between these intermediary factors and the mental health problems were, in most cases, influenced by a group of factors, including SES, sex, country of origin, and birth cohort, collectively named structural determinants. These determinants discriminated results between boys and girls, high SES and low SES, Nordic and non-Nordic origin, and the 1997 and 1999 cohorts. This underscores the need for at least two-tiered policy intervention. The first involves an immediate to mid-term response, targeting these intermediary factors with a special focus on the low SES group, girls, and young people with foreign backgrounds. The second entails a long-term policy intervention to narrow the divide.
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| 2. |
- Buli, Benti Geleta, et al.
(författare)
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The impact of family and peer relationships on developmental trajectories of depressive and anxiety symptoms among young people
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Background: Adolescent mental health is a growing global concern, with depressive and anxiety symptoms on the rise over recent decades. The significance of supportive social relationships, particularly within family and peer groups, is well-established in research. However, limited evidence exists on the impact of social relationships in predicting the developmental trajectories of mental health problems over time.Methods: This study aims to fill this gap by identifying distinct trajectories of depressive and anxiety symptoms among adolescents and exploring the impact of various factors, including family relationships, peer relationships, sex, and country of origin, on predicting individuals' likelihood of belonging to specific trajectories. Based on data collected from adolescents in Sweden born in 1997 and 1999, the study utilized Group-Based Trajectory Modeling (GBTM) to analyze longitudinal data. Statistical analyses, including multinomial logistic regression, were conducted to examine the predictive effects of social relationships on depressive and anxiety symptom trajectories.Results: Positive social relationships with family and peers emerged as robust predictors across depressive and anxiety symptom trajectories. Female participants consistently exhibited higher mean scores of depressive and anxiety symptoms than males, while participants originating from countries outside the Nordic region were at higher risk of belonging to depressive symptom trajectory groups with higher mean scores. Despite limitations such as high attrition rates, the study's methodological rigor offers valuable insights into the predictive effects of social relationships on mental health trajectories.Conclusions: The study underscores the importance of addressing social factors in adolescent mental health prevention strategies. Despite facing limitations such as high attrition rates, the study's strengths lie in its methodological rigor, providing valuable insights into the predictive effects of social relationships on mental health trajectories and addressing crucial gaps in the literature. This pioneering approach offers implications for future intervention and prevention strategies, emphasizing the importance of social factors in understanding and addressing adolescent mental health.
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| 3. |
- Buli, Benti Geleta, et al.
(författare)
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Trends in adolescent mental health problems 2004–2020 : do sex and socioeconomic status play any role?
- 2023
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Ingår i: Scandinavian Journal of Public Health. - 1403-4948 .- 1651-1905.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Aims: This study aims to investigate trends in four types of adolescent mental health problems; that is, psychosomatic symptoms, depressive symptoms, suicidal ideations, and suicide attempts 2004–2020. A second aim is to investigate the moderating roles of socioeconomic status and sex in these trends.Methods: The analysis is based on repeated cross-sectional data 2004–2020 among grade 9 students in secondary schools in a Swedish county. In total, data from 19,873 students were included in the analysis. We fitted linear and logistic regression equations and used survey-years’ coefficients to estimate the trends. We also estimated the moderating effects of socioeconomic status and sex using interactions between survey year and socioeconomic status and sex, respectively.Results: The trends in all mental health problems declined over time. Through its interaction with survey year, socioeconomic status moderated the trends; psychosomatic symptoms (B = −0.115, P<0.001), depressive symptoms (B = −0.084, P<0.001) and suicidal ideations (odds ratio 0.953, confidence interval 0.924–0.983) significantly declined over time among those with high socioeconomic status. However, socioeconomic status did not have an association with the trend in suicide attempts. Interaction between sex and year of survey was associated with significant decreasing trends in depressive symptoms and suicidal ideations only among girls.Conclusions: Adolescent mental health problems have decreased over time, but only for adolescents with high socioeconomic status, or only in depressive symptoms and suicidal ideations for girls. The results shed light on the growing inequalities in health outcomes across levels of socioeconomic status.
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| 4. |
- Buli, Benti Geleta, et al.
(författare)
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Trends in adolescent mental health problems and the role of lifestyle factors
- 2023
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Background:Adolescent mental health problems are on the rise globally, including in Sweden. One indicator is an increase in psychosomatic symptoms (PSS) over time. Lifestyle factors such as physical activity (PA), diet, smoking, and alcohol consumption may influence the trends in PSS. However, we found limited research on such associations.Methods:This study is based on data collected every four years from nationally representative samples of 15-year-old boys and girls in Sweden (N = 9,196, 50.5% girls), as part of the Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC) study. PSS was measured using a scale developed from the HBSC symptom checklist. We analyzed the trends in PSS from 2002 to 2018 and fitted models to investigate the associations between the trends and lifestyle factors. We included interaction terms between time and each lifestyle factor and fitted separate models for the high and low socioeconomic status (SES) groups.ResultsIn general, the mean scores for PSS increased from 2.26 in 2002 to 2.49 in 2018 (p<.001). Compared to the average mean scores during preceding years, the changes in PSS mean scores at each survey year were also significant in all years except 2010. More frequent breakfast intake, daily consumption of fruits and vegetables, and higher PA were associated with lower PSS mean scores while smoking and alcohol consumption had the opposite association. The only significant interaction (B = .050; CI: .015, ¬ .085; p<.01) was observed in the high SES group, indicating that the increasing trend in PSS was stronger among those who had been drunk once or more in a lifetime, compared to those who had never been drunk.ConclusionsThe results indicate increasing trends in mental health problems among young people in Sweden. Furthermore, the study revealed that alcohol drunkenness was associated with a more substantial rise in PSS over time among those in the high SES group. Further research is needed to understand the reasons behind these findings.
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| 5. |
- Buli, Benti Geleta, et al.
(författare)
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Trends in mental health problems among Swedish adolescents : Do school-related factors play a role?
- 2024
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Ingår i: PLOS ONE. - 1932-6203. ; 19:3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- AimThe aim of this study is to investigate the extent to which school-related factors, such as school liking, participation in decision-making, school-related parental support, teachers’ support, and school physical environment, explain trends in mental health problems. The problems considered are psychosomatic symptoms (PSS), depressive symptoms (DS), suicidal ideations (SI), and suicide attempts (SA) among Swedish adolescents of varying socioeconomic status (SES) from 2004 to 2020.MethodsWe analyzed data collected through repeated cross-sectional surveys from 19,873 15-year-old students at schools in a county in Sweden. Boys and girls each constituted 50% of the participants. We fitted linear and logistic regression models to investigate associations between the school-related factors and trends in mental health problems.ResultsIncreased school-related parental support and school liking were cross-sectionally associated with decreased PSS, DS and SI, with school liking also associated with decreased SA. Conducive school physical environment was also found to be cross-sectionally associated with lower PSS and DS scores. Over time, mental health problems have shown a general increase among adolescents in the low SES group and a decrease among those in the high SES group. While school-related factors explained the improvement in mental health in the high SES group, we found such association only between parental support trends in PSS and DS, along with participation and trends in SA over time among adolescents in the low SES group.ConclusionsThe results show that school-related factors play significant roles in influencing adolescent mental health. The influence, however, varied across SES gradients over time. This suggests that working against inequities in school-related factors would help address inequities in mental health.
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| 6. |
- Buli, Benti Geleta, et al.
(författare)
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Trends in psychosomatic symptoms among adolescents and the role of lifestyle factors
- 2024
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Ingår i: BMC Public Health. - 1471-2458. ; 24
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background Adolescent mental health problems are on the rise globally, including in Sweden. One indicator of this trend is increased psychosomatic symptoms (PSS) over time. Lifestyle factors such as physical activity (PA), diet, smoking, and alcohol consumption may influence the time trends in PSS; however, the evidence base is scarce. The aim of this study was to investigate associations between time trends in PSS and lifestyle factors.Methods The study was based on data collected from a nationally representative sample of 9,196 fifteen-year-old boys and girls in Sweden using the Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC) symptom checklist. The sample comprised nearly equal proportions of girls (50.5%) and boys. The lifestyle factors examined in this study included PA, regular breakfast intake, consumption of fruits, vegetables, sweets, or soft drinks, smoking, and alcohol drunkenness. We used data from 2002 to 2018 and stratified by family affluence scale (FAS) to demonstrate how the associations varied among the FAS groups. We fitted separate regression models for the high- and low-FAS groups, where interaction terms between the year of survey and each lifestyle factor were used to estimate the level and direction of associations between the factors and trends in PSS.Results There was a generally increasing trend in PSS mean scores from 2.26 in 2002 to 2.49 in 2018 (p <.001). The changes in each survey year compared to the average mean scores during the preceding years were significant in all years except 2010. Regular breakfast intake, daily fruit and vegetable consumption, and higher PA were associated with lower PSS mean scores, while smoking and drunkenness had opposite associations with PSS. The only significant interaction between survey year and the lifestyle factors was observed regarding drunkenness in the high FAS group, suggesting that the association between trends in PSS and the experience of getting drunk at least twice got stronger over time (B = 0.057; CI:0.016, 0.097; p <.01).Conclusions The results indicate increasing trends in PSS among young people in Sweden from 2002 to 2018, with a significant increase observed among adolescents in the high FAS group who reported getting drunk on at least two occasions.
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| 7. |
- Giannotta, Fabrizia, et al.
(författare)
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Among the swedish generation of adolescents who experience an increased trend of psychosomatic symptoms. Do they develop depression and/or anxiety disorders as they grow older?
- 2022
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Ingår i: BMC Psychiatry. - : NLM (Medline). - 1471-244X. ; 22:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: Despite an increase in mental health problems, with psychosomatic symptoms having been observed in new generations of Swedish youth, the extent to which these problems correspond to an increase in adult mental problems is unknown. The present study investigates whether Swedish adolescents with high levels of psychosomatic symptoms are at risk of developing depression and anxiety problems in adulthood and whether sex moderates any association. Moreover, we aim to understand whether different clusters of youth psychosomatic symptoms - somatic, psychological and musculoskeletal - have different impacts on adult mental health. METHODS: One thousand five hundred forty-five Swedish adolescents - aged 13 (49%) and 15 (51%) - completed surveys at baseline (T1) and 3 years later (T2); of them, 1174 (61% females) also participated after 6 years (T3). Multivariate logistic models were run. RESULTS: Youth with high levels of psychosomatic symptoms had higher odds of high levels of depressive symptoms at T2 and T3. Moreover, psychosomatic symptoms at T1 predicted a high level of anxiety symptoms and diagnoses of anxiety disorders at T3. When analyzed separately, musculoskeletal symptoms predicted higher odds of having high levels of depressive symptoms at T2 and T3 while somatic symptoms predicted high levels of anxiety symptoms at T2. Moreover, somatic symptoms at T1 predicted diagnoses of depression and anxiety disorders at T3. Sex did not moderate any of the relationships. CONCLUSIONS: The study supports the idea that an increase in mental health problems, such as psychosomatic symptoms, can seriously impact the psychological health of new generations of young adults.
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| 8. |
- Giannotta, Fabrizia, 1978-, et al.
(författare)
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Frequency of vigorous physical activity and depressive symptoms across adolescence : Disentangling the reciprocal associations between different groups and subtypes of symptoms
- 2023
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Ingår i: Mental Health and Physical Activity. - : Elsevier BV. - 1755-2966 .- 1878-0199. ; 25
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Physical activity has a demonstrated positive effect on youth depressive symptoms. However, very few studies have explored the bi-directionality of the links between physical activity and depression. The present study aims at filling this gap and tests whether any associations are moderated by sex. Moreover, the role of subtype of depressive symptoms, vegetative (i.e., lack of energy, poor sleep) or non-vegetative (i.e., mood-related), is explored. Participants were 910 12-13 year-old Swedish adolescents (56% girls) who answered a three-wave survey at ages 12-13 (T1), 15-16 (T2), and 18-19 (T3). Using a cross-lagged structural model, depression predicted decreased frequency of vigorous physical activity (VPA) from T1 to T2 (& beta; = -0.09, p < .05) and from T2 to T3 (& beta; = -0.10, p < .01), while frequency of VPA at T2 decreased depression at T3 (& beta; = -0.12, p < .05). Associations did not differ between boys and girls. Non-vegetative symptoms predicted decreased frequency of VPA from T1 to T2 (& beta; = -0.10, p < .05), while frequency of VPA at T2 predicted decreased non-vegetative symptoms at T3 (& beta; = -0.15, p < .05). Vegetative symptoms predicted decreased frequency of VPA from T1 to T2 (& beta; = -0.09, p < .05), while have a reciprocal influence with VPA from T2 to T3. Overall, our results highlight an association across adolescence between VPA and depression. The association becomes stronger and reciprocal in middle adolescence, which suggests this period as an effective developmental time to plan physical-activity-based interventions to decrease youth depressive symptoms.
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| 9. |
- Gustafsson, Peter, et al.
(författare)
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Teknikämnet i svensk grundskolas tidiga skolår sett genom forskningscirkelns lupp.
- 2018
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Ingår i: NorDiNa. - : University of Oslo Library. - 1504-4556 .- 1894-1257. ; 14:2, s. 113-124
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Technology has been a compulsory subject in the Swedish school curriculum since 1980. However,many primary school teachers say that they do not feel comfortable with teaching technology. Thisoften results in a teaching time that is a (too) small part of the total teaching time of science andtechnology. In addition, studies show that pupils are probably not given equivalent education asthe syllabi may be interpreted in different ways. Against this background, we have conducted threeresearch circles under the guidance of researchers, in three municipalities in the Mälardalen region,addressing teachers working in preschool class to grade 6. Each circle had up to five participants andhad five meetings during one year. Based on the teachers’ own questions and needs we have studieddidactic literature connected to the subject of technology, discussed the syllabi for technology anddifferent forms of teaching support. An existing model for pedagogical content knowledge in technologyhas been used to interpret the activities in the research circles. The teachers experienced and appreciatedthe opportunities to work with the subject content linked to the syllabi for technology andsaw ways to integrate technology with other school subjects.
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| 10. |
- Larm, Peter, et al.
(författare)
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Adolescent non-drinkers : Who are they? Social relations, school performance, lifestyle factors and health behaviours
- 2018
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Ingår i: Drug and Alcohol Review. - : WILEY. - 0959-5236 .- 1465-3362. ; 37:S1, s. S67-S75
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Introduction and AimsTraditionally, non-drinking adults or young adults have been associated with health deficits rather than health benefits. However, as the proportion of Swedish non-drinking adolescents has doubled since 2000, their health profiles are of interest. The aim of the present study is to examine whether social relations, school characteristics, lifestyle factors or health behaviours distinguish adolescent non-drinkers from adolescent drinkers, and if their health profiles have changed from 2004 to 2012.Design and MethodsData from the Survey of Adolescent Life in Vestmanland, a health survey biennially distributed to all 9th graders (15-16years) in a medium-sized Swedish county, was used. In total, 2872 students in 2004 and 2045 students in 2012 were included.ResultsNon-drinkers were distinguished from drinkers in both 2004 and 2012 by elevated parental supervision, a lower rate of school truancy and lower rates of cannabis use, use of other illicit drugs, daily smoking and lower scores on antisocial behaviour, but more problems of getting new friends. No differences between 2004 and 2012 were found.Discussion and ConclusionsNon-drinkers presented more adaptive and healthier behaviours than their drinking peers, but it is difficult to determine whether their health benefits were related to their improved alcohol status or to the more general trend towards adaptation that occurred from 2004 to 2012 among adolescents.
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