Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine, UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
Department of Pediatrics, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
J Community Psychol. 2023 Jul;51(5):1851-1859. doi: 10.1002/jcop.22935. Epub 2022 Sep 12.
Youth participatory action research (YPAR) empowers youth to address challenges in their environment. Empowerment is associated with prosocial behaviors; however, understanding of how empowerment may serve as a protective factor and promote emotional health remains limited. We sought to characterize protective factors (future orientation and resilience) and emotional health (difficulties regulating emotion and psychological distress) among youth engaged in YPAR and examine associations with psychological empowerment. We administered cross-sectional surveys to 63 youth in YPAR programming. Multivariable linear regression examined relationships between psychological empowerment, protective factors, and emotional health. Participants had high future orientation and resilience with high psychological distress. Empowerment was significantly associated with higher future orientation. There was no significant relationship between empowerment and measures of emotional health. We demonstrate the importance of evaluating protective factors and emotional health constructs in empowerment frameworks, calling for strategies that incorporate such protective factors and more directly address emotional health.
青年参与式行动研究（YPAR）使青年人有能力应对其环境中的挑战。赋权与亲社会行为有关；但是，对于赋权如何可以作为保护因素并促进情绪健康的理解仍然有限。我们试图描述参与 YPAR 的青年的保护因素（未来导向和韧性）和情绪健康（情绪调节困难和心理困扰），并探讨与心理赋权的关系。我们向 YPAR 计划中的 63 名青年进行了横断面调查。多变量线性回归分析了心理赋权、保护因素和情绪健康之间的关系。参与者具有较高的未来导向和韧性，同时心理困扰也较高。赋权与较高的未来导向显著相关。赋权与情绪健康的衡量指标之间没有显著关系。我们证明了在赋权框架中评估保护因素和情绪健康结构的重要性，呼吁采取策略，纳入这些保护因素，并更直接地解决情绪健康问题。
