Department of Family Medicine, Queen's University, Kingston, ON, Canada.
School of Health Studies, Western University, London, ON, Canada.
PLoS One. 2023 Dec 27;18(12):e0295704. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0295704. eCollection 2023.
Despite reporting poorer self-rated mental health (SRMH) than boys, girls exhibit greater resilience and academic achievement, and less risk taking or death by suicide. Might this apparent paradox be an artefact arising from girls' and boys' different interpretations of the meaning of SRMH? We examined whether the indicator, SRMH, had a different meaning for girls and boys.
In 2021-2, we circulated social media invitations for youth age 13-18 to complete an online survey about their mental health, and which of 26 individual and social circumstances shaped that rating. All data were submitted anonymously with no link to IP addresses. After comparing weightings for each characteristic, factor analyses identified domains for the whole group and for girls and boys.
Poor SRMH was reported by 47% of 506 girls and 27.8% of 216 boys. In general, circumstances considered important to this rating were similar for all, although boys focussed more on sense of identity, self-confidence, physical well-being, exercise, foods eaten and screen time, while girls paid more attention to having a boyfriend or girlfriend, comparisons with peers, and school performance. With factor analysis and common to boys and girls, domains of resilience, behavior/community, family, relationships with peers and future vision emerged. Girls' poorer SRMH did not arise from a more expansive interpretation of mental health. Instead, it may reflect perceived or real disadvantages in individual or social circumstances. Alternatively, girls' known greater resilience may propel lower SRMH which they use intuitively to motivate future achievement and avoid the complacency of thinking that 'all is well'.
The relative similarity of attributes considered before rating one's mental health suggests validity of this subjective measure among girls and boys.
尽管报告的自我评估心理健康状况 (SRMH) 不如男孩，但女孩表现出更强的适应力和学业成就，冒险行为或自杀率较低。这种明显的悖论是否是由于女孩和男孩对 SRMH 含义的不同解释而产生的人为因素？我们研究了 SRMH 对女孩和男孩是否有不同的含义。
在 2021-2 年，我们通过社交媒体邀请 13-18 岁的青少年完成一项关于他们的心理健康以及 26 种个人和社会环境如何影响他们的心理健康的在线调查。所有数据都是匿名提交的，没有与 IP 地址的链接。在比较了每个特征的权重后，因素分析确定了整个组以及女孩和男孩的领域。
506 名女孩中有 47%报告 SRMH 较差，216 名男孩中有 27.8%报告 SRMH 较差。总的来说，所有受访者都认为对这个评分重要的情况相似，尽管男孩更关注身份认同感、自信、身体健康、锻炼、饮食和屏幕时间，而女孩更关注有男朋友或女朋友、与同龄人比较以及学业成绩。通过因素分析和男女共有的分析，出现了韧性、行为/社区、家庭、与同龄人关系和未来愿景领域。女孩较差的 SRMH 并不是由于对心理健康的更广泛解释所致。相反，它可能反映了个人或社会环境中感知或实际的劣势。或者，女孩已知的更强的适应力可能会导致较低的 SRMH，而她们会凭直觉利用这种 SRMH 来激励未来的成就，并避免因认为“一切都好”而自满。
在对自己的心理健康进行评分之前考虑的属性相对相似，这表明该主观测量在女孩和男孩中具有有效性。
