The purpose of this study was to find out the relationship between self-esteem and mental health in Middle school students, and provided basic data to develop a nursing program for the prevention of mental disease and the promotion of mental health in...
The purpose of this study was to find out the relationship between self-esteem and mental health in Middle school students, and provided basic data to develop a nursing program for the prevention of mental disease and the promotion of mental health in adolescence.
Subjects were 153 students in the third year of three middle schools located in K city.
Instruments used in this study were the self-esteem questionnaire developed by Choi, B. K. & jun, G. Y.(1993) and the simplified SCL-90 developed by Lee, H. K.(1986) for measuring mental health.
Data were analyzed by Cronbach's alpha, descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, Pearson's correlation coefficient by using SPSS/PC+ program.
It was found that the mean score of the self-esteem was 3.20. The score of self-esteem in family was high and the score of self-esteem in school was low.
The mean score of mental health was 1.94. The scores of depression, obsessive-compulsive and interpersonal sensitivity were high, the scores of phobic anxiety and somatization were low.
There were significant differences among religions (F=2.709, p= .032), and between personalities (t=-2.285, p= .024) with respect to self esteem. There were no significant differences between general characteristics variables and mental health.
However there was significant negative correlation between the mean self-esteem score and the mean mental health score (r=-.431, p= .000).
In conclusion, mental health is strongly related to self-esteem. If and adolescent who suffers from mental health is not received proper treatment, his or her mental health prohibits him from managing sound social life even after grown-up. Thus, nursing intervention in adolescence should be developed to enhance the self-esteem of adolescence and to help him raise sound mind.