Social Emotional Health Survey-Secondary (SEHS-S): A Universal Screening Measure of Social-Emotional Strengths for Spanish-Speaking Adolescents

Abstract

The Social Emotional Health Survey-Secondary (SEHS-S), which is a measure of core psychological assets based on a higher-order model of Covitality, is comprised of 36 items and four latent traits (with three measured subscales): belief in self (self-efficacy, self-awareness, and persistence), belief in others (school support, family coherence, and peer support), emotional competence (emotional regulation, behavioral self-control, and empathy), and engaged living (gratitude, zest, and optimism). Previous international studies have supported the psychometric properties of the SEHS-S. The present study extended this research by examining the psychometric properties of a Spanish-language adaptation with a sample of 1042 Spanish adolescents (Mage = 14.49, SD = 1.65.). Confirmatory factor analyses replicated the original factorial structure, with hierarchical omega between 0.66–0.93, with 0.94 for the total score. Factorial invariance across genders revealed small latent mean differences. A path model evaluated concurrent validity, which revealed a significant association between Covitality and bidimensional mental health (psychological distress and well-being). Specifically, correlational analyses showed a negative association with internalizing/externalizing symptoms, and positive associations with subjective well-being, health-related quality of life, and prosocial behaviors. This study provides an example of a culturally relevant adaptation of an international tool to measure student strengths, which is critical to planning school programming and policy.

DetectaWeb-Distress Scale: A Global and Multidimensional Web-Based Screener for Emotional Disorder Symptoms in Children and Adolescents

“…DetectaWeb Project is a web-based early detection program of mental health rated on a continuum, which assesses psychological distress (DetectaWeb-Distress Scale) as well as psychological well-being (DetectaWeb-Well-being Scale) in children and adolescents. This web-based assessment protocol from the Bidimensional Mental Health Model (BMHM) has also been employed in two previous studies (Piqueras et al, 2019 ; Rivera-Riquelme et al, 2019 ).…”

“…Also, this presence of emotional symptoms, among others, at subclinical level raise the risk of subsequent development of mental disorder (Fonseca-Pedrero et al, 2020 ). However, the approach to adolescent mental health must contemplate not only a psychopathological view, but both the presence of difficulties and strengths (i.e., Piqueras et al, 2019 ; Rivera-Riquelme et al, 2019 ; Fonseca-Pedrero et al, 2020 ).…”

Enhancement and Standardization of a Universal Social-Emotional Health Measure for Students’ Psychological Strengths

“…It positively correlated with the Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS; Chen and Zhang 2004) among Chinese youths (N = 3750; Xie et al 2018). In a sample of Spanish adolescents, the covitality latent trait was positively associated with health-related quality of life (r = .79) and negatively related to emotional and behavioral problems (r = −.45; N = 1060; Piqueras et al 2019). These studies provided reliability and validity evidence for the preliminary SEHS-S; however, they did not provide information about the validity evidence or utility of the SEHS-S across large, comprehensive populations of diverse youth.…”

Impact of the MooN Physical Education Program on the Socio-Emotional Competencies of Preadolescents

“…The WHO [1,2] recommends that schools function as an environment of prevention, intervention, and support for students' mental health, promoting the development of the socio-emotional skills of school-age children as factors of covitality [3,4], and thus promoting social and emotional well-being [5,6]. Emotional education and health education converge on these goals, as does physical education.…”