DISTRESS AND HEALTH RISK BEHAVIORS OF ADOLESCENTS IN ROMANIAN MIGRANT HOUSEHOLDS

References: 3rd International Multidisciplinary Scientific Conference on Social Sciences and Arts SGEM 2016, www.sgemsocial.org, SGEM2016 Conference Proceedings, ISBN 978-619-7105-70-4 / ISSN 2367-5659, 24 - 31 August, 2016, Book 1 Vol. 1, 123-130 pp, DOI: 10.5593/SGEMSOCIAL2016/B11/S01.016

ABSTRACT
Growing up without parents can seriously affect psychological development of children and adolescents. In the present in Romania over 300,000 children up to the age of 18 have one or both parents working abroad. Existing data mostly focused on children, less is known about parental absence effect on adolescents. Objective: We aimed to examine the association of parents’ migration with adolescent mental health assessing distress and health risk behaviors. Method: A sample of N=477 participants (291 girls and 185 boys) with one or both parents working abroad was withdrawn from a large nationally representative adolescent sample (N=3423). A self-administered online questionnaire assessed level of depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, health-risk behaviors like skipping meals, physical inactivity, smoking, alcohol and drug use as well as sexual risk behaviors. Findings: Overall results indicated more negative outcomes for adolescents with mother or both parents absent.

Keywords: mental health, migrant parents, children left behind, suicide, risk behaviors