%0 Journal Article
%T Life satisfaction mediates the association between mental health risk and perceptions of school functioning among children and adolescents
%J Contemporary school psychology
%D 2020
%A Guzmán, Javier
%A Green, Jennifer Greif
%A Oblath, Rachel
%A Holt, Melissa K.
%V 24
%N 4
%P 389-399
%X This study examined the association of students' life satisfaction with mental health risk and perceptions of school functioning (academic and social functioning). Participants were 1348 students (53.5% female) enrolled in grades 4 to 12 in a predominantly non-Latino white and middle-upper class public school district in the northeastern USA. Moderated mediation analyses were performed, and overall life satisfaction (BMSLSS; Huebner et al. Psychology in the Schools, 41(1), 81-93; 2004b) was tested as a mediator of the relationship between mental health risk (SDQ; Goodman, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 40, 1337-1345; 2001) and perceptions of school functioning. The main results indicated that overall life satisfaction significantly mediated the relationship between mental health risks and perceptions of academic functioning and social functioning; however, this mediation was specific to internalizing problems. School level moderated this relationship, such that high school students (but not elementary/middle school students) reported that life satisfaction significantly mediated the relationship between higher mental health risk and lower perceptions of school functioning (both academic and social functioning). <br><br>RESULTS suggest the importance of including measures of life satisfaction in routine school mental health assessments.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>
%G en
%I California Association of School Psychologists
%@ 2159-2020
%U http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s40688-019-00257-w