Mental health predicts better academic outcomes: a longitudinal study of elementary school students in Chile.
The world's largest school-based mental health program, Habilidades para la Vida [Skills for Life (SFL)], has been operating on a national scale in Chile for 15 years. SFL's activities include using standardized measures to screen elementary school students and providing preventive workshops to students at risk for mental health problems. This paper used SFL's data on 37,397 students who were in first grade in 2009 and third grade in 2011 to ascertain whether first grade mental health predicted subsequent academic achievement and whether remission of mental health problems predicted improved academic outcomes. Results showed that mental health was a significant predictor of future academic performance and that, overall, students whose mental health improved between first and third grade made better academic progress than students whose mental health did not improve or worsened. Our findings suggest that school-based mental health programs like SFL may help improve students' academic outcomes.
Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Yawkey 6A, Boston, MA, 02114, USA, mmurphy6@partners.org.
J Michael
JM
Murphy
Javier
J
Guzmán
Alyssa E
AE
McCarthy
Ana María
AM
Squicciarini
Myriam
M
George
Katia M
KM
Canenguez
Erin C
EC
Dunn
Lee
L
Baer
Ariela
A
Simonsohn
Jordan W
JW
Smoller
Michael S
MS
Jellinek
D000124:Achievement; D002648:Child; D002677:Chile; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008603:Mental Health / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012574:Schools / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013334:Students / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*