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Peer victimization is a major stressor adolescents often face in the school environment, and has been linked to depression and suicidal risk. This study analyzed the associations between three behavioral coping strategies (avoidance, seeking social support from adults/peers, and retaliation) and depression and suicidal ideation. Participants included 4,254 victimized students who were part of the Saving and Empowering Young Lives in Europe (SEYLE) study that compared three school-based prevention interventions and collected information on health risk behaviors in adolescents from 11 European countries. Results showed behavioral avoidance to be associated with an increase in levels of depression, as compared to the other coping strategies (adult social support, peer social support, retaliation). Seeking social support from adults was associated with lower depression and suicidal ideation rates. A more than 25% increase in suicidal ideation was associated with behavioral avoidance, compared to seeking social support from adults. By contrast, retaliation to peer victimization was not found to be associated with increased depression or suicidal ideation. The findings support the Coping Deficit model and may suggest that abstaining by doing nothing when victimized can be associated with certain adverse emotional outcomes.

Objective: In support of a whole-school approach to mental health promotion, this study was conducted to find out whether and how significantly teachers' satisfaction with school and their subjective psychological well-being are related to the belief that they can help pupils with mental health problems. Design: Cross-sectional data were collected as a part of the European Union's, Seventh Framework Programme for Research (FP7) Saving and Empowering Young Lives in Europe (SEYLE) study. One of the elements of the SEYLE study was to evaluate teachers' attitudes and knowledge related to pupils' mental health issues and their own psychological well-being, as well as their satisfaction with the school environment. Setting: The sample of schools from the SEYLE study sites representing 11 European countries was randomly chosen according to prior defined inclusion and exclusion criteria. The final cross-sectional database used for analysis in the current study comprised 2485 teachers from 158 randomly selected schools. Method: Respondents' belief that teachers can help pupils with mental health problems served as the outcome variable in our predictions with probability of the positive answer being modelled in the logistic regression analysis. Teachers' subjective psychological well-being and school satisfaction were included as independent variables in the logistic regression model and several other relevant variables were added to statistically control for them. Multiple models were tested in order to obtain the final modResults: Logistic regression models showed that better satisfaction with general school climate, higher psychological well-being, and the ability to understand pupils' mental health problems increased the odds of teachers' readiness to help pupils with mental health problems. Conclusion: By providing a good school environment, by valuing the subjective psychological well-being of the teachers, and by providing adequate training to fulfil their 'gatekeeper' role, the preconditions to improve the mental health of the pupils they teach will be achieved. These suggestions are in line with a whole-school approach to mental health promotion.

Background: Subthreshold-depression and anxiety have been associated with significant impairments in adults. This study investigates the characteristics of adolescent subthreshold-depression and anxiety with a focus on suicidality, using both categorical and dimensional diagnostic models. Methods: Data were drawn from the Saving and Empowering Young Lives in Europe (SEYLE) study, comprising 12,395 adolescents from 11 countries. Based on self-report, including Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II), Zung Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS), Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and Paykel Suicide Scale (PSS) were administered to students. Based on BDI-II, adolescents were divided into three groups: nondepressed, subthreshold-depressed and depressed; based on the SAS, they were divided into nonanxiety, subthreshold-anxiety and anxiety groups. Analyses of Covariance were conducted on SDQ scores to explore psychopathology of the defined groups. Logistic regression analyses were conducted to explore the relationships between functional impairments, suicidality and subthreshold and full syndromes. Results: Thirty-two percent of the adolescents were subthreshold-anxious and 5.8% anxious, 29.2% subthreshold-depressed and 10.5% depressed, with high comorbidity. Mean scores of SDQ of subthreshold-depressed/anxious were significantly higher than the mean scores of the nondepressed/nonanxious groups and significantly lower than those of the depressed/anxious groups. Both subthreshold and threshold-anxiety and depression were related to functional impairment and suicidality. Conclusions: Subthreshold-depression and subthreshold-anxiety are associated with an increased burden of disease and suicide risk. These results highlight the importance of early identification of adolescent subthreshold-depression and anxiety to minimize suicide. Incorporating these subthreshold disorders into a diagnosis could provide a bridge between categorical and dimensional diagnostic models. (Contains 4 tables.)