The psychological problems and related influential factors of left-behind adolescents (LBA) in Hunan, China: a cross sectional study.
BACKGROUND
Due to lack of companionship of parents, compared with non left behind children, left behind children (LBC) suffer from more psychological problems compared with children live with their parents. The aim of this study was to explore the mental health status and the relationship among psychological problems and the related factors of LBC.


METHOD
Adopting delaminating-random-group sampling and using region, county, village (town) as sampling framework, we utilized Demographic Data Recording Form, Adolescent Self-Rating Life Events Check List, Scale of APGAR, Perceived Social Support Scale, Simplified Coping Style Questionnaire, Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, Self-Esteem Scale and Scale of Mental Health for Chinese Middle-school Student to assess 1309 left behind child in junior middle school students' mental health in Hunan. Statistic description, Structural equation model was adopted to analyze the data.


RESULT
There was a significant difference in score of psychological problems between LBC and non-LBC(F = 18.224, P<0.000). Life event was the major factor(r = .487) that affected psychological problems (path coefficient, PC = 0.08) directly and affect psychological problems indirectly through affecting passive coping (PC = 0.01)and family functioning(PC = 0.02); family functioning impacted psychological problems indirectly through affecting social support (PC = 4.89) and self-esteem (PC = 0.10); social support (PC = -0.02), passive coping (PC =0.07) and active coping PC = -0.04) affected psychological problems directly. Psychoticism (P) (PC = 0.11), Neuroticism (N) influenced psychological problems of LBC both directly (PC = 0.04) and indirectly through affecting self-esteem (PC: P:-1.87; N: -0.83), while Extraversion/Introversion (E) (PC = 0.21) only impact psychological problems indirectly through self-esteem. Altogether, these variables accounted for 50.2% of total variance of psychological problems (F = 130.470, P = 0.000) for LBC.


CONCLUSION
In this research we proved that LBC have more sever psychological problems than non-LBC. We also identified the direct and indirect influential factors of psychological problems of LBC. The findings had important implications for prevention policies and interventions to promote mental health of LBC.
['Man|Ye|Y|', 'Mengmeng|Lv|L|', 'Lezhi|Li|L|', 'Ting|Mao|M|', 'Jingping|Zhang|Z|']
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological D000293:Adolescent D002648:Child D002670:Child, Abandoned D002681:China D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies D005260:Female D006801:Humans D008297:Male D001523:Mental Disorders D012307:Risk Factors D012649:Self Concept D012944:Social Support D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
Life events Social support Coping Personality Self-esteem Family functioning Adolescent psychiatry