Parents’ and teachers’ perceptions of emotional and behavioural problems of school-going adolescents

Self-reported studies alone cannot be used to deduce the signicance of adolescent problems. Therefore, the current study focuses on parents’ and class teachers’ perspectives of school-going adolescents’ emotional and behavioural problems. The objectives are to apprehend the prevalence of adolescent problems, comparisons on gender, school-area; and its association with socio-demographic details. A cross-sectional questionnaire-based study was conducted among 19 schools from government-private and rural-urban schools across Kollam District, Kerala. Malayalam/English version of the Strength and Diculties Questionnaire (SDQ) was administered among a sample of 600 parents and 60 class teachers of school-going adolescents. Gender correlation with parents’ report found emotional problems (P<0.01), conduct problems (P<0.01), hyperactivity (P<0.001), peer problems (P<0.001) whereas in teachers’ report found relationship with emotional problems (P<0.05) and hyperactivity (P<0.001). Multivariate test results reveal that there is a statistically signicant difference in emotional and behavioural problems of school-going adolescents based on school area (government-urban, government-rural, private-urban and private-rural). Multiple linear regression analysis on parents reports is signicantly predicted with gender (P<0.01), urban-rural settings (P<0.001) and socioeconomic status (P<0.01). Teachers’ report has signicantly been predicted with urban-rural settings (P<0.01) and socioeconomic status (P<0.001). Parents’ reports revealed a less overall prevalence of emotional and behavioural problems than teachers’ reports. Female adolescents tend to have more emotional problems and males were found to be more hyperactive. A signicant difference was found with the school-area settings and signicant association with socio-demographic details of adolescents. More attention is needed for the protection of adolescents’ mental health and lls mental health gaps in services. Multiple linear regression analysis was made for the association of parental and teacher SDQ total scores with gender, urban-rural settings, and socio-economic status. The results show parents’ report of overall diculties in SDQ (F=11.17, R square=.05, P<0.001) is signicantly predicted with gender (B=-1.24, P<0.01), urban-rural settings (B=-1.67, P<0.001) and socioeconomic status (B=.57, P<0.01). Teachers report of overall diculties in SDQ (F=10.50, R square=.05, P<0.001) is signicantly predicted with urban-rural settings (B=-1.31, P<0.01) and socioeconomic status (B=.99, P<0.001) whereas gender has no signicant prediction (table-4). into account which may help in understanding the emotional and behavioural problems of adolescents. The lack of assessment among parents is also one of the drawbacks of the current study. The strength of the current study is the large sample size, it covers rural/urban, government/private schools, and understands the parents’ and teachers’ perspectives. This study provides direction to promote insight into new strategies for prevention and intervention for mental health problems of school-going adolescents.


Introduction
Adolescence is a period of rapid physical, psychological growth and age from 10 to 19 years (WHO, n.d.-a). It is a transition between childhood to adulthood and major development changes take place during this period (WHO, n.d. Health integrates the physical, mental and social aspects of every individual. Mental health is an ability to cope with stress, work productively and it is an essential component of health (WHO, 2017). A meta-analysis of epidemiological studies on child and adolescent psychiatric disorders in India found that the prevalence rate in the community was 6.46% whereas 23.33% in school (Malhotra & Patra, 2014). A wide variety of mental health problems prevails among adolescents such as conduct problems, psychological distress, substance use, anti-social behaviour, and all of these problems depend on sociodemographic factors (Magai, Malik, & Koot, 2018).
Emotional and behavioural problems are most commonly seen among school-going adolescents. Emotional problems like anxiety, depressed mood and behaviour problems like conduct problems, hyperactivity and peer-related problems may lead to disturbance in personal, family, school and social activities (Meilstrup et al., 2015). Several epidemiological studies found emotional and behaviour problems among adolescents in India. A cross-sectional school-based study found that less than one-tenth of school-going adolescents have some mental health issues (Harikrishnan, Arif, & Sobhana, 2017). Another study revealed that 15% of adolescent school children had mental health problems (Nair, Ganjiwale, Kharod, Varma, & Nimbalkar, 2017). In both studies, the self-reported strengths and di culties questionnaire was administered among adolescents. This indicates that most of the studies were self-reported the mental health status of school-going adolescents.
Emotional and behavioural problems cannot be understood from adolescents' self-reported status alone therefore it becomes imperative to take into account the perspective of parents and teachers on emotional and behavioural problems of school-going adolescents. Accordingly, the current study focuses on parents' and teachers' perceptions of emotional and behavioural problems of school-going adolescents. The objectives of the study are: 1) to determine the parents' and teachers' perception of emotional and behavioural problems of adolescents; 2) to assess parents' and teachers' perception of emotional and behavioural problems across gender; 3) to evaluate the association between parents and teachers perception on emotional and behavioural problems of school-going adolescents with school-area; 4) to assess parents' and teachers' perception on emotional and behavioural problems of school-going adolescents with socio-demographic details.

Materials And Methods
This study was is a cross-sectional descriptive study on parents' and teachers' perception of adolescents' emotional and behavioural problems. The study was conducted in 19 schools from government-private and rural-urban schools across Kollam District, Kerala. The sample size was 600 parents of school-going adolescents from 60 classes (36 from class VIII to X and 24 from class XI and XII), and 120 responded each from class VIII to class XII. Sixty Class teachers were debriefed regarding 10 school-going adolescents from their respective classes. The sample size formula was calculated at 600 based on a cross-sectional descriptive study (Jayasinghe, 2010).
The procedure began by taking written permission from each school authority followed by written consent from parents and teachers during the period, July to October 2019. The questionnaire consists of the gender of school-going adolescents, school settings, area, parents and teachers age, gender and education, parents response on the socioeconomic status by modi ed Kuppuswamy scale (Saleem, 2018). Strength and Di culties Questionnaire (SDQ) for age 4 to 17 or 18 plus to understand emotional & behavioural problems, and three versions of SDQ are self-reported, parents and teachers reports. The current study used only the Malayalam/English version of the parents and teachers SDQ report (Goodman, 1997). There were 25 items comprised of 5 scales of 5 items each and the scales consisted of emotional problems, conduct problems, hyperactivity, peer problems and pro-social behaviour. The item score is zero = "not true", one = "somewhat true" and two = "certainly true" and there were items like 7, 11, 14 and 25 which had the reverse scoring pattern. The current study scoring was based on the original three-band categorization (normal, borderline & abnormal). The total score is the sum of the rst 4 scales and score range between zero to forty; and the parent report total, score ranges are normal (≤13), borderline (14 to 16) and abnormal (17 to 40) whereas in teacher report total, score range is normal (≤11), borderline (12 to 15) and abnormal (16 to 40).
The study was undertaken with the approval of the Academic Council of Mizoram University. The descriptive and inferential statistics were done through Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The descriptive statistics consisted of the percentage of SDQ scores of both parents' and teachers' reports. The inferential statistical analysis was an independent ttest for comparing SDQ total score of each scale and overall of parent and teacher report; MANOVA analysis for parents and teachers SDQ total score with school-area. The school-area in the current study are government-urban (n=150), government-rural (n=150), private-urban (n=150) and private-rural (n=150). Multiple linear regression analysis was done for the predictors on total SDQ sore of parents and teachers report with the gender of school-going adolescents, rural-urban settings and socio-economic status.

Results
A little more than half (53%) of school-going adolescents were female and 600 school going adolescents' parents participated in the study. The mean age of parents was 42.86 (SD=5.89) wherein 63% are mothers and 41% completed higher education. The 60 class teachers mean age was 42.30 (SD=6.42), most teachers are female (75%) and the majority of them (83%) completed Post Graduate with B. Ed/ M. Ed/NET/SET. Overall SDQ score on parents' report found that 12.5% of school-going adolescents had an abnormality. Peer problems (15.7%) were higher and the lowest abnormality found was hyperactivity (10%). The conduct problems (12.7%) revealed that high abnormality and low abnormality in hyperactivity (5.3%), and the overall SDQ score shows that 14.3% are abnormal as per the teachers' report (table-1).  Teachers perception -SDQ total score 3 14.14 .000 .07 P-value of .000 means p < .0005 Table -3 depicts multivariate test result of one-way MANOVA which shows statistically signi cant differences in emotional and behavioural problems (SDQ total score) of school-going adolescents based on school area (governmenturban, government-rural, private-urban and private-rural), F=13.85, p<.0005; Wilk's Λ= .874, partial η 2 =.07. The tests of between-subject effects found that school-area has a statistically signi cant effect on both parental perceptions on SDQ total score (F=14.57; p<.0005; partial η 2 =.07) and teachers' perception on SDQ total score (F=14.14; p<.0005; partial η 2 =.07).

Discussion
Parents' and teachers' reports on emotional and behavioural problems of school adolescents found prevalence rate was higher than one-tenth of the total sample in the study. The parents report found prevalence among 12.5% of school-going adolescents while teachers' report revealed that 14.3% of them had emotional and behavioural problems. Epidemiological studies on mental health disorders of children and adolescents in Asia found the general prevalence to be in the range of population-based study measured the 6 months stability from teachers' and parents' reports found that less than a tenth of school children aged 13 to 14 years had emotional and behavioural problems (Idris, Barlow, & Dolan, 2019). The current study also found prevalence rate below one fth of total samples by parents' and teachers' report.
Emotional problems in uence the development of every individual especially adolescents. The current study found more than a tenth of school-going adolescents with emotional problems illustrated from parental reports while it was less than a tenth according to teachers' reports. Parents of emotionally disturbed children were more involved and provided less autonomy. Parents' over-involvement may also lead to emotional problems (Hudson, Comer, & Kendall, 2008 revealed the same on parental and teacher SDQ total scores which are associated with gender, urban-rural settings, and socio-economic status.
The limitation of the study is that it is cross-sectional, results were based on a single scale, and does not incorporate sociodemographic details of parents and teachers with emotional and behavioural problems of adolescents. The class teacher's period of relationship with students was not taken into account which may help in understanding the emotional and behavioural problems of adolescents. The lack of assessment among parents is also one of the drawbacks of the current study. The strength of the current study is the large sample size, it covers rural/urban, government/private schools, and understands the parents' and teachers' perspectives. This study provides direction to promote insight into new strategies for prevention and intervention for mental health problems of school-going adolescents.

Conclusion
There are some differences between teachers and parents perspectives on the status of adolescents. Parents reported that a little less than a quarter of school-going adolescents has borderline-abnormal emotional and behavioural problems whereas teachers reported that 30.5% have borderline-abnormal problems. The gender and school type difference also shows the signi cant difference in emotional and behavioural problems. Adolescents need proper concern and psychosocial care and support for their present and future development. However, the role of the mental health professional is crucial for adolescent development in the contemporary world.