School-related stress, support, and subjective health complaints among early adolescents: a multilevel approach

This study investigated the relationship between shared psychosocial school environment and subjective health complaints. A representative sample of 1585 Norwegian grade 8 students (mean age 13·5 years) from 82 schoolclasses completed scales on health complaints, academic stress, the teacher and cla...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of adolescence (London, England.) Vol. 24; no. 6; pp. 701 - 713
Main Authors TORSHEIM, TORBJORN, WOLD, BENTE
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford Elsevier Ltd 01.12.2001
Elsevier Science
John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Subjects
Adaptation, Psychological
Adolescent
Adolescents
Adult and adolescent clinical studies
Biological and medical sciences
Children & youth
Female
Health
Health Problems
Humans
Male
Medical sciences
Models, Statistical
Norway
Psychology, Adolescent
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Psychosocial Factors
Psychosocial support
School Environment
School stress
Schools
Sick Role
Social Environment
Social Support
Somatoform disorders. Psychosomatics
Stress
Stress, Psychological - psychology
Students - psychology
Young people
Norway
Human
Social environment
Pain
Somatoform disorder
Adolescent
Somatic conversion
Coping
School environment
Stress
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Summary:This study investigated the relationship between shared psychosocial school environment and subjective health complaints. A representative sample of 1585 Norwegian grade 8 students (mean age 13·5 years) from 82 schoolclasses completed scales on health complaints, academic stress, the teacher and classmate support scale, decision control, and noise and disturbance in class. Multilevel analysis (MlwiN) revealed that level of health complaints varied across schoolclasses (ICC=5·6%). School class differences in psychosocial environment accounted for 40% of the between-schoolclass variance in health complaints. Tests of cross-level interaction showed a statistically significant interaction between mean schoolclass-level of classmate support and individual level of academic stress. Findings suggest that shared schoolclass contextual factors may have main and stress-moderating effects on adolescent health complaints.
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ISSN:0140-1971
1095-9254
DOI:10.1006/jado.2001.0440