Comparison of self‐reported emotional and behavioural problems in adolescents from Greece and Finland

Abstract

Aim: To compare self-reported emotional and behavioural problems among Greek and Finnish adolescents.Methods: Youth Self-Report scores were analysed for 3373 Greek adolescents aged 18 years and 7039 Finnish adolescents aged 15-16 years from the general population in both countries. The impact of country, gender, place of residence, socioeconomic status (SES) and family stability on the scores was evaluated.Results: Only country and gender yielded small to medium effect on the scores. Greek boys scored significantly higher than Finns on 10 of the 11 YSR syndromes, particularly on the anxious/depressed scale. Greek girls scored significantly lower than Finnish girls on the somatic complaints and delinquent behaviour scales. In general, girls scored higher than boys on both internalising and externalising problems. The gender by country interaction revealed that Finnish girls reported more externalising problems.Conclusion: The main differences marked in this comparison were the higher level of anxiety and depression in Greeks than Finns and the higher level of externalising problems in Finnish girls than boys. Cultural standards could play an important role in explaining these differences. Overall, it seems that only a small number of differences exist between a northern and southern European region.

Suicidal expressions among young people in Nicaragua and Cambodia: a cross-cultural study

“…Several previous studies have reported cross-cultural differences on YSR-scores but mostly to a lesser extent. For example, in a study comparing adolescents in Greece and Finland, there were higher level of anxiety and depression in Greece but the overall conclusion was that differences between these Northern and Southern regions were small [33]. A study comparing YSR-scores from seven countries also concluded differences were small between countries [34].…”

The Relationship between Self-rated Psychopathic Traits and Psychopathology in a Sample of Finnish Community Youth: Exploration of Gender Differences

“…Our findings are very much in line with the abovementioned ones when it comes to internalizing psychopathology, but we were unable to observe any significant gender difference in the Externalizing scale, and, in fact, girls even reported significantly more aggressive behavior than boys did. This finding is not, however, a new one; the tendency has been reported repeatedly in Finnish community studies [52,53]. Moreover, in a recent cross-national study of more than 8000 adolescents from different Nordic countries, girls reported significantly more anger symptoms than boys did [54].…”

“…Moreover, in a recent cross-national study of more than 8000 adolescents from different Nordic countries, girls reported significantly more anger symptoms than boys did [54]. According to some researchers, this phenomenon may reflect the social, educational and economic gender equality characteristics of Nordic countries [53].…”

Self‐reported emotional and behavioral problems in Nepalese adolescents from urban and rural areas

“…The results from the ANCOVA were in accordance with previous studies, in which the YSR was used in other countries (Rescorla et al ., 2007; 2012; Fonseca‐Pedrero et al ., ; Milam et al ., ). However, in Greece, boys scored significantly higher in anxious/depressed problems than Finnish girls or boys (Kapi et al ., ). Earlier studies have reported that girls' tendencies to internalize problems were mostly related to the difficulties they experience in their daily lives (Sieh et al ., ).…”