A psychological and medical analysis of temperament, character and behavior in children and adolescents of school refusal

Abstract

Objective: To analyse the teenagers' school refusal behavior and its relationship with their as well as their parents' temperament and character. Methods: The patients were matched by a ratio of 1:3 in age to gender for clinical studies. Adolescents who refused to go to school and their parents were selected from the mental outpatients of our hospital as the study group (n=55) and those who did not refuse to go to school together with their parents were the control group (n=165). Adolescents in the two groups were asked to fill out questionnaire of general information as well as Teenager Temperament Character Inventory (JTCI-S) and their parents were told to fill Chinese version of Temperament Character Inventory (TCI-R140). Results: The teenagers in the study group had higher HA score and lower score in NS, RD, SD, CO and PS than those in the control group with statistically significant difference in between (P<0.05). Fathers in the study group had lower RD than those in the control group. The mothers' RD and ST scores in the study group were lower than those in the control group and the difference was statistically significant (P<0.05) (SR<0). Conclusion: There are significant differences in self and parent's temperament and character between the adolescent of school refusal and those of school refusal in the control group. For teenagers with unusual family style, factors like high harm avoidance pose certain risks to school refusal behavior. In addition, the teenagers have the characteristics of novelty seeking, reward dependency and cooperative disposition, which provides certain protective factors for school refusal behavior.