Sense of coherence and school-related stress as predictors of subjective health complaints in early adolescence: interactive, indirect or direct relationships?
The role of sense of coherence (SOC) on the relationship between adolescent school-related stress and subjective health complaints was tested with structural equation modelling. As part of the crossnational WHO-survey 'Health behaviour in school-aged children 1997/98' Norwegian representative samples of 1592 grade 6, 1534 grade 8, and 1605 grade 10 students completed measures on SOC, school-related stress and subjective health complaints. A test of nested structural models revealed that both stress-preventive (delta chi2 814. 86, p<0.001), stress-moderating (delta chi2 11.74, p<0.02) and main health-enhancing (delta chi2 1289.1, p < 0.001) effects of SOC were consistent with the data. A model including all these relationships fitted the data well (CFI = 0.91, RMSEA = 0.04). Age-group comparisons revealed that the association between SOC and stress grew weaker with age (p<0.05), whereas the direct association between SOC and health complaints grew stronger (p<0.001). The main effect of SOC accounted for between 39% (11 year olds) and 54% (15 year olds) of the variance in subjective health complaints. Findings indicate that SOC may potentially be a salutogenic factor in adolescents' adaptation to school-related stress, and that relationships between SOC and healthy adaptation, may be evident in younger age-groups than previously anticipated.
Torsheim
T
T
Research Centre for Health Promotion, University of Bergen, Norway. torbjoern.torsheim@psych.uib.no
Aaroe
L E
LE
Wold
B
B
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological / Q000145:classification; D000293:Adolescent; D001007:Anxiety / Q000209:etiology / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000523:psychology; D002648:Child; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D008960:Models, Psychological; D009664:Norway / Q000453:epidemiology; D000297:Psychology, Adolescent / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002666:Psychology, Child / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012574:Schools; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000150:complications / Q000209:etiology / Q000517:prevention & control*