School refusal behavior: Latent class analysis approach and its relationship with psychopathological symptoms

School attendance problems are a serious issue for educators, psychologists and physicians. Nonattendance is a key risk factor for academic failure, violence, psychiatric disorders or economic deprivation. This study aimed to identify different school refusal behavior profiles and to determine whether these profiles differ from each other based on several psychopathological symptoms (somatization, obsessive-compulsive, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation and psychoticism). The participants were 1894 Spanish adolescents (53% boys) aged 15-18 years (M = 16.84, SD = 1.03). The School Refusal Assessment Scale-Revised (SRAS-R) and the Symptom Assessment-45 Questionnaire (SA-45) were administered. Latent class analysis revealed four school refusal behavior profiles: Non-School Refusal Behavior, High School Refusal Behavior, Moderately Low School Refusal Behavior and Moderately High School Refusal Behavior. The results indicated that the High School Refusal Behavior and Moderately High School Refusal Behavior groups were the most maladaptive profiles and revealed the highest mean scores on the psychopathological symptoms. These findings highlight the importance of promoting good mental health to prevent school refusal behaviors.
Author(s): Carolina Gonzálvez [sup.1] , Ángela Díaz-Herrero [sup.2] , María Vicent [sup.1] , Ricardo Sanmartín [sup.1] , Antonio M. Pérez-Sánchez [sup.1] , José M. García-Fernández [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.5268.9, [...]