Panthip Chantarachote. Psychological self-care, social support, and mental health status of high school students, Bangkok Metropolis . Master's Degree(Public Health Nursing). Mahidol University. : Mahidol University, 2004.
Psychological self-care, social support, and mental health status of high school students, Bangkok Metropolis
Abstract:
The purpose of this descriptive research was to investigate psychological
self-care, social support, and mental health status of high school students.The
sample was selected by simple random sampling and it consisted of 608 grade 10-12
students in Bangkok. Data were collected using questionnaires for mental health
status, psychological self-care, and social support. Data were analyzed using
frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, T-test and Chi-square.
Results showed that most of the subjects (80.1%) were normal and 19.9%
had mental health problems. The subdimension of mental health: anxiety and
insomnia was the most common mental health problem (x = 0.95±1.59), followed by
somatic symptoms (x = 0.91±1.42) whereas the severe depression was the least
common mental health problem (x = 0.54±1.22). The family’s financial status was
significantly associated with mental health status. (p-value = 0.001). The subjects
with normal mental health status had psychological self-care, family’s social
support, friend’s social support, teacher’s social support; which had significantly
higher mean scores than those of mental health problem group (xnormal = 3.00±0.26,
xnormal = 4.19±0.61, xnormal = 3.42±0.61 xnormal = 3.20±0.65, xproblem= 2.95±0.30,
xproblem = 3.86±0.77, xproblem = 3.28±0.75, xproblem = 2.97±0.79 respectively).
The findings of the study suggested that high school students were at risk of
having mental health problems. Public health nurses and personnel concerned
should promote mental health and prevent mental health problems especially among
those who have symptoms indicating abnormality. Urgent assistance should be
offered to students who had symptoms. The assistance can be provided by home
visits, family counseling and therapy for those who have tendency for mental health
problems. There should also be collaboration to create a network that will offer
thorough care and assistance. The emphasis should be placed on other groups of
students, especially those with poor family’s financial status, low psychological selfcare
or low social support.