The following is a summary of “Psychological characteristics and emotional difficulties underlying school refusal in adolescents using functional near-infrared spectroscopy,” published in the December 2023 issue of Psychiatry by Li et al.
Researchers conducted a study to investigate the psychological characteristics, emotional difficulties, and brain function abnormalities associated with school refusal in adolescents.
They studied 38 adolescents (12–18 years old) not attending school and 35 healthy controls (12–18 years old) regularly attending school. Participants provided information on general demographics, Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ), Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS), Zung Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS), and Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90). Alongside clinical tests, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was conducted. Mental health factors were examined in both groups to understand school refusal in adolescents.
The results showed that compared to healthy controls, participants had higher EPQ scores (P(FDR) < 0.001) in neuroticism, lower scores in introversion and concealment (P(FDR) < 0.001), and no significant difference in psychoticism. SDS, SAS, SCL-90 scores, and factor scores were elevated compared to healthy controls (P(FDR) < 0.001). NIR brain imaging varied in channels 12 and 27 (P(FDR) = 0.030, P(FDR) = 0.018), with no difference in other channels (P(FDR) > 0.05). Significant age and gender gaps existed between school-refusing adolescents and the control group (P(FDR) < 0.001).
They concluded that school-refusing adolescents exhibited introverted and sensitive traits, emotional difficulties, and frontal lobe abnormalities.
Source: bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-023-05291-w
