A comparison of mental health of student and not student emerging adults living in Ecuador

Clara Paz, Chris Evans

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    Most of the studies about mental health and quality of life of emerging adults have been conducted in developed countries and non-students' population has been neglected, limiting the generalisation of the results to other socioeconomic realities. This paper reports the results of an observational study on differences between the two cohorts (students vs non-students) both on mental health and quality of life measures but also on demographic, lifestyle and mental health variables in emerging adults living in a middle-income country. Associations between variables and interactions in the prediction of both outcomes scores were explored to understand how much other variables may contribute to differences between the two groups. We found poorer mental health and worse health-related quality of life in the students than the non-students, although effect sizes were small. Differences between the groups on some sociodemographic predictor variables were statistically significant, showing fairly strong effects, for social status, sleeping hours and parenting, however, none of the predictor variables showed confounding with group effects on both outcomes. Developing countries are growing and work forces are changing, creating a huge global need to understand these changes and the effects on the mental health and quality of life of this evolving population.Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT04596345). [Abstract copyright: © 2023. The Author(s).]
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1487
    JournalScientific Reports
    Volume13
    Issue number1
    Early online date27 Jan 2023
    DOIs
    Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 27 Jan 2023

    Keywords

    • Quality of Life - psychology
    • Adult
    • Humans
    • Ecuador
    • Mental Health
    • Life Style

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