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The main objective of this study is to explore the impact of the psychosocial factors (social support, resilience, and mental health) on the family functioning and on the parent’s perception of their children’s well-being. Participants were 1757 parents of children aged 6 to 16 years, 77.3% female ( N = 1359), and 22.7% male ( N = 398), aged between 20 and 80 years ( M = 41.61 and SD = 5.71). A path analyses model indicated that social support and resilience, which were positively associated, presented positive effects on parental mental health and on family functioning. No effect was observed on family functioning by parental mental health after including the effects by social support and resilience. Finally, this model pointed out that better family functioning, more social support, and more resilience skills were related to better child well-being. Implications to research and to prevention and psychological intervention in relation to parental skills and family functioning are presented in order to promote children well-being and healthy development.

OBJECTIVE: The main objective is to understand and characterize the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on mental health and psychosocial risks at work in professionally active adults. METHODS: This specific work includes 4708 professionally active participantsfrom all over the country, of which 3354 are female (71.2%), aged between 19 and 86 years, with an average age of 45.8 years (SD = 12.56). RESULTS: The global impact of Covid-19 is explained by socio-demographic factors (gender, age, and education), by work-related and volume of work and health that is reflected in most symptoms. We found gender, age, education level and professional area differences related to global impact of Covid-19. CONCLUSION: The Covid-19 pandemic accounts for the challenge to identify the important factors to promote resilience of citizens, professionals, and organizations.

© 2021 Wiley Periodicals LLC, Adolescents' mental health determines their general health and their mental health as adults. Improve the Youth project (ITY) was created and implemented among Polish and Portuguese adolescents. The aim of the project was to investigate the well-being of Portuguese and Polish adolescents, and to evaluate differences between them in self-rated health, life satisfaction and perceived psychosomatic health. A mixed-method approach was applied. The quantitative part was based on Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) 2014 data, including adolescents aged 11-15 years (6026 in Portugal; 4545 in Poland). This study meets the issues raised by the HBSC results, regarding mental health in adolescence, and it is aimed to improve adolescents' social participation and active citizenship. In most study areas, findings in Poland were less favourable than in Portugal. The qualitative part was developed to recognize the main threats for adolescent's well-being. In this, they emphasised that every opportunity to talk about their feelings and needs resulted in improvement of their mental health. Elevated levels of stress were connected to environmental pressure and high expectations that they were often unable to cope with. Nervousness, perceiving that it was impossible to meet expectations, the desire to keep up with their peers, fatigue, and uncertainty of the future increased the feelings of frustration. The differences found between countries may be due to cultural roots, surfacing the relevance of assessing adolescents' mental health needs in the social context of family, school and peers. This study also aims to raise awareness among educators and stakeholders to the importance of youth engagement.

The influence that social factors (relationship with teachers, peers and family support), future expectations, physical and psychological symptoms exert on the adolescents’ tobacco and alcohol consumption is analyzed, and the differences between users and non-users are analyzed as well. This work is part of the HBSC study. The results show that substance use is associated with more physical and psychological symptoms, worse relationship with teachers and peers, less family support, and lower future expectations. It is important to intervene towards the construction of more positive future expectations and relationships and the promotion of physical and psychological well-being, as protective factors against substance use. Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia - FCT info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

The study aimed to characterize and understand the difficulties experienced by informal caregivers from a bio-psychosocial and environmental perspective, taking into account the socio-demographic and health characteristics of the informal caregiver and the person cared for, quality of life, perceived burden, social support, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the informal caregiver and the person cared for. The participants were 371 informal primary caregivers, 80.9% female, aged between 25 and 85 years, mean 53.17 (SD = 11.45) years. Only 16.4% of the informal caregivers benefited from monitoring and training for informal caregiver skills; 34.8% received information on the rights of the person being cared for; 7.8% received advice or guidance on the rights and duties of the informal caregiver; 11.9% of the caregivers benefited from psychological support; and 5.7% participated in self-help groups. A convenience sample was used, and data were collected via an online questionnaire. The main findings show that the major difficulties experienced by caregivers are related to social constraints, the demands of caring, and the reactions of the person cared for. The results reveal that the burden of the main informal caregivers is explained by the level of education, quality of life, level of dependence of the person cared for, level of difficulties, and social support. The COVID-19 pandemic impacted caregiving by increasing the perceived difficulty of accessing support services, such as consultations, services, and support; causing distress feelings in the caregiver, such as, anxiety and worry; increasing the needs and symptoms of the person cared for; and increasing the degree of isolation, for both, the informal caregiver and the person cared for.

The UN has recognised well-being as a main goal of The Global Strategy for Women's, Children's and Adolescents' Health (2016-2030).The aim was to identify the areas of mental health that are the most significant to teenagers.The mixed-method approach was applied. Quantitative research included adolescents aged 11-15 years (6,026 in Portugal; 4,545 in Poland). HBSC study results (2013/2014) were analysed in terms of the following variables: self-rated health, life satisfaction (Cantril Ladder, KIDSCREEN-10 Index), and psychosomatic complaints (SCL scale). Focus workshops took place in 2018, with 72 teenagers aged 14 to 16.16.6% of the Polish participants and 12.7% of the Portuguese participants were concerned about their health. Polish participants were less satisfied with their life [KIDSCREEN score: 25.48 for Poland (SD=6.39), and 29.96 (SD=6.03) for Portugal]. Both nations associated mental health (MH) with the family setting and relationships with friends. An additional association among Portuguese teenagers involved social issues, whereas Polish adolescents were more focussed on relationships with various people in their environment, as well as on experiencing issues at school and in the family.Adolescent MH is determined by stress, environmental pressure and high expectations. The viewpoints of adolescents are the most valuable source of knowledge for specialists, researchers and youth institutions, who can benefit greatly from taking advantage of this resource.

Copyright © 2021, © SAGE Publications, Resilience is an individual’s ability to adapt successfully to and persevere during and after significant challenges. Resilience programmes based on a socioemotional learning approach have been associated with an increase in protextive factors (e.g., prosocial competencies), improvements in physical and mental health, and a decrease in internalised and externalised symptoms. The present study aimed to evaluate the impact of the RESCUR curriculum implemented in Portuguese schools on students’ academic, behavioural, and socioemotional outcomes, based on child and teacher reports. Participants included 1,084 children (53.2% male) aged 3-15 (M = 7.24, SD = 2.31). A quasi-experimental study compared outcomes for an experimental intervention group (AIG) with a waiting list control group (WG). The results showed the RESCUR programme decreased mental health difficulties while increasing both prosocial behaviours and well-being. In addition, academic performance increased for those in preschool after implementation. Both teachers and children consistently reported positive behavioural changes in resilience-related competencies after implementing RESCUR. Our findings contribute to the recent research on the potential of RESCUR to address key socioemotional competencies and improve relevant protextive factors. Study limitations and future recommendations are addressed., The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The consortium between six European universities that developed RESCUR Curriculum, funded by the EU Comenius Program. The Portuguese National Agency for Scientific and Technological Culture (Ciência Viva) funded this study through the grant INT-338. The Portuguese National Foundation for Science and Technology (SFRH/BD/126304/2016) supported this work through a grant assigned to ACS

Humans are social animals, and crave feeling supported, valued and connected. Research shows that social connection provides important benefits to mental health and positive human development. The aim of this study was to explore how social connection helps promote mental health and positive human development and report the associations with the PYD construct of connection with different dimensions of mental health (e.g. self-regulation, resilience, anxiety, aggressiveness and worries), life satisfaction and academic performance in a large sample of Portuguese students. The HBSC/JUnP data base comprises a representative sample of 2991 college students (n=2203; 73.7% women) and their age ranged from 18 to 35 years old (22.43±3.83). Participants’ socio-demographic characteristics included sex, age and academic degree; besides participants were inquired about the PYD construct of connection and its subdimensions (family, university, neighbourhood, peers), mental health (namely self-regulation, resilience, anxiety, aggressiveness, worries), life satisfaction and academic performance. Results showed that all variables had mostly significantly correlational associations. Specifically, the linear regression model evidenced that the promotion of self-regulation and resilience, along with the reduction of anxiety and worries, can be relevant for improving social connections (PYD Connection), Los seres humanos son animales sociales y desean sentirse apoyados, valorados y conectados. La investigación muestra que la conexión social proporciona importantes beneficios para la salud mental y el desarrollo humano positivo. El objetivo de este estudio fue explorar cómo la conexión social ayuda a promover la salud mental y el desarrollo humano positivo e examinar las asociaciones con la dimensión de conexión dentro del constructo de desarrollo positivo juvenil con diferentes dimensiones de la salud mental (por ejemplo, autorregulación, resiliencia, ansiedad, agresividad y preocupaciones), satisfacción con la vida y rendimiento académico, en una amplia muestra de estudiantes portugueses. La base de datos HBSC / JUnP comprende una muestra representativa de 2991 estudiantes universitarios (n = 2203; 73,7% mujeres) y con edades entre los 18 y los 35 años (22,43 ± 3,83). Las características sociodemográficas de los participantes estudiadas fueron sexo, edad y grado académico; además, se preguntó a los participantes sobre el constructo de desarrollo positivo juvenil de conexión y sus diferentes subdimensiones (familia, universidad, barrio, e iguales), salud mental (es concreto, autorregulación, resiliencia, ansiedad, agresividad, y preocupaciones), satisfacción con la vida y rendimiento académico. Los resultados mostraron que todas las variables tenían asociaciones correlacionales mayoritariamente significativas. Específicamente, el modelo de regresión lineal evidenció que la promoción de la autorregulación y la resiliencia, junto con la reducción de la ansiedad y las preocupaciones, pueden ser relevantes para mejorar las conexiones sociales (dentro del desarrollo positivo juvenil)

Objectives The present study aimed to evaluate the influences of sleep duration, sleep deprivation, and weekend variability of sleep upon other adolescents' features, namely those related to health and health-related quality of life. Methods The Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC) survey is based on a self-completed questionnaire. The participants in the present study were 3476 students (53.8% were girls) in the 8th and 10th grades at school; the mean age was 14.9 years (range 12.5–19.0). Subjective sleep duration during the weeknights and weekends was collected; sleep deprivation (SD) was considered whenever the difference was greater than 3 h. Health complaint frequency and health-related quality of life (with the Kidscreen 10) were collected. Results Sleep deprivation was present in 18.9% of the students. It was negatively correlated with sleep duration on weeknights. There were no gender differences, but SD increased with age and grade. Higher school grades were mainly associated with fatigue. A considerable number of adolescents had sleep problems (37.2%); 25.5% had difficulties in sleep initiation, which was more prevalent in adolescents with SD. The sleep duration on weeknights was decreased in the SD group. The average health-related quality of life was reduced in adolescents with SD. The frequency of health complaint was higher is adolescents with SD. Girls had significantly more health complaints than boys, with special focus on headaches. Conclusions Sleep deprivation is associated with the perception of health-related quality of life and perceived physical and mental health.

The aim of this study was to understand what children’s and adolescents’ worries are and the strategies used to face them. Two studies were carried out. Study one had a sample of 1,207 Portuguese children and adolescents, 48.4% boys, attending 5th to 9th grades, mean age 12.5, participated in a first approach to children and adolescents’ theories about worries and coping with worries. Study two had a sample of 527 Portuguese children and adolescents, 46.8% boys, 5th to 9th grades, mean age 12.4, aimed to replicate study one and to go in depth on worries and coping and gender differences. Confronted with questions about the frequency of worries, the impact of worries, the kind of worries and how to cope with them, it was clear that the majority of children and adolescents get worried frequently, part of them let worries interfere significantly in their lives, and the best coping strategy is distraction, less frequently they seek social support, try to calm down or engage in health compromising behaviours such as drinking or eating or being violent. Other strategies were reported but none of them was frequent as these ones. Family, peers (getting supported) and leisure time (getting distracted) are important issues in young people’s well-being but they play differential roles. School seems part of “the problem” but never “part of the solution”. The role of personal competences such as resilience, self-regulation, and problem-solving appears less frequently in these age groups. Mental health is a forgotten area in health promotion in schools, but indeed being worried frequently without being able to solve worrying issues does not contribute at all for children and adolescents’ well being and furthermore is able to interfere with the so feared school success. The implications for health promotion interventions in families and in schools are discussed.

The main objective of this study was to build a model, which includes personal and social factors, that helps to highlight factors that promote health-related quality of Life (HRQoL) in children and in adolescents. A sample of 3195 children and adolescents was acquired from 5th and 7th graders from all five Portuguese regions. In this study three independent latent variables were specified – Physical, Psychological and Social and two dependent latent variables were measured: Health behavior and Quality of Life. The integrative model was composed by different components: (1) health-related quality of life, integrated by 8 dimensions from KIDSCREEN-52; (2) health behavior, (3) variables related to physical health; (4) variables related to social health; (5) variables related to psychological health. As results were found strong correlation between psychological dimensions and self-esteem and other factors and a structural equation model was developed. The model presented a RMSEA index of .08. Similarly, adjustment levels for the CFI, NFI and IFI vary above or around .90, which suggests a good adjustment for the hypothesized model. The model presented significant qui-square.This study showed that in all the samples studied, the psychological variables were those that contributed at a superior level to HRQoL.