Mental health status and internet-surfing behavior among rural adolescents / 中国心理卫生杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To investigate the prevalence and influencing factors of mental health status and internet-surfing behavior among rural adolescents in Sichuan province,and explore the mutual effects between mental health status and internet-surfing behavior.Methods:Totally 2745 junior and senior high school students of grade seven and grade ten from two rural schools were selected.Mental health status,self-esteem and social support of students were assessed with Mental Health Inventory of Middle-school students (MMHI),Rosenberg self-esteem scale (SES) and social support rating scale (SSRS) respectively.Demographic characteristics,internet-surfing behavior were obtained using cross-sectional survey.Non-recursive structural equation model was applied to analyze the effects of other variables on mental health status and internet-surfing behavior and the mutual effects between them.Results:The mean score of MMHIwas (2.1 ±0.7),and the dimensions including academic stress (2.4 ±0.9),emotional instability (2.4 ±0.8) and anxiety (2.4 ± 1.0) got the top three.The total prevalence of long-time internet-surfing was 32.8％ (899/2745).The structural equation model showed that female and increasing age had positive effects on score of MMHI (β =0.058,0.058,P ＜ 0.001),and male and increasing age positively influenced internet-surfing behavior (β =-0.171,0.149,P ＜ 0.001).The scores of SES and S SRS were directly negatively related to the score of MMHI (β =-0.300,-0.263,P ＜ 0.001),and indirectly negatively affect internetsurfing behavior through the mediating effect of mental health (βi =-0.074,-0.065,P ＜ 0.010).The score of MMHI had positively effects on long-time internet-surfing behavior (β =0.246,P ＜ 0.001),and long-time internetsurfing behavior had positively effects on the score of MMHI in reverse (β =0.008,P ＜ 0.001),but much weaker.Conclusion:There are mild mental health problem among rural adolescents,and internet-surfing behaviors are prevalent among this population.Poor mental health and long-time internet-surfing behavior are risk factors mutually.