Scholarly record

THE PHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING OF CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE FROM A TRANSCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE: A COMPARATIVE STUDY AMONG ROMANIAN, MOROCCAN IMMIGRANTS AND SPANISH PEOPLE IN SOUTHERN SPAIN USING KIDSCREEN QUESTIONNAIRE

Encarnacion Soriano, Veronica C. Cala, Antonio J. Gonzalez, Diego Ruiz Salvador

Abstract

Background. Subjective well-being and health measurement instruments have undergone a major evolution in the last 40 years. One of the more used health-related quality of life instruments for children and adolescent in European countries is the KIDSCREEN questionnaire in its three different versions: -52, -27 and -10 items. Despite of his (mainly linguistic) cross-cultural validation, not many research attempt to asses and go into cultural groups differences. The aim of this paper is to describe and analyze physical and psychological well-being relationship, two of the main dimension of Kidscreen-27, between native and immigrant adolescents in southern Spain. Method. The study is a cross-sectional research with cluster sampling in two primary schools and seven secondary schools. The questionnaire was distributed to a sample of 1.840 Romanian, Moroccan and Spanish students aged between 10 and 19 years old. Data analysis was conducted with the software package SPSS, version 21. Descriptive results show better physical and psychological subjective well-being in Moroccan immigrants, while Spanish and Romanian groups report worse perceptions. The contrast analysis identified significative differences (p=0,00) in psychological wellbeing between Spanish and Moroccan participants. It has been also found significative gender differences in all cultural groups. Women show worse outcomes in both dimensions. Correlational analysis between physical and psychological wellbeing reflects more Western-South differences. For western youth (Spanish and Romanian) physical well-being is not correlated with psychological one. However, psychological and psychological dimensions in Moroccan youth present a marginally significative predictive relationship (p=0,06). Conclusions: The study supports “Immigrant paradox” hypothesis because immigrant children and youth present better well-being perception than local ones, mainly people from Morocco. In the same way, this results show how western children health perception is more dualized (body-mind dichotomy) than in “south country” children, from northern Africa. Another highlight aspect is all sociocultural groups present significant gender differences, gender still being a negative social determinant for health and well-being.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgemsocial2014/B12/S2.132

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