Africa Mental Health Research and Training Foundation, Nairobi, Kenya.
Department of Psychiatry, University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya.
BMC Psychiatry. 2022 Feb 17;22(1):131. doi: 10.1186/s12888-022-03781-x.
There is no Kenyan evidence on the relationship between mental illness and academic performance. We aimed to determine the effect of life skills training on mental health and academic performance.
We administered to 1848 primary school children a researcher designed socio-demographic questionnaire, and the Youth Self Report (YSR) and Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) to their parents, followed by eight sessions of life skills training. We extracted data from the individual records of each child on overall performance pre and post training separated by one year. We conducted descriptive statistics, paired sample t-tests, multivariate linear regression analysis and linear mixed model analysis to assess changing patterns of academic performance and any predictive characteristics.
There was significant (p < 0.05) improvement in overall academic performance (aggregate marks and all individual subjects) for both lower primary and upper primary classes after the life-skills training intervention. For lower classes (2-4 grades) increase in academic performance was significantly associated with fathers and mothers education levels, region and class. For upper classes, (5-7 grades) increase in academic performance was associated with region, class and age.
Life skills training is recommended as it could improve academic performance, but predicted by socio-demographic factors.
肯尼亚尚无关于精神疾病与学业成绩之间关系的证据。我们旨在确定生活技能培训对心理健康和学业成绩的影响。
我们向 1848 名小学生发放了研究者设计的社会人口学问卷，以及青少年自我报告（YSR）和儿童行为检查表（CBCL）给他们的父母，随后进行了八次生活技能培训。我们从每个孩子的个人记录中提取了培训前后一年的总体表现数据。我们进行了描述性统计、配对样本 t 检验、多元线性回归分析和线性混合模型分析，以评估学业成绩的变化模式和任何预测特征。
生活技能培训干预后，低年级和高年级的整体学业成绩（综合成绩和所有个别科目）均有显著提高（p<0.05）。对于低年级（2-4 年级），学业成绩的提高与父母的教育水平、地区和班级显著相关。对于高年级（5-7 年级），学业成绩的提高与地区、班级和年龄有关。
生活技能培训被推荐，因为它可以提高学业成绩，但受社会人口因素的预测。
