COMORBIDITY OF DEPRESSION AND ANXIETY WITH FUNCTIONAL IMPAIRMENT IN CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS WITH LOW ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT

Abstract

The present research has been conducted to identify the comorbidity of depression, anxiety and functional impairment (FI) in children and adolescents with low academic achievement. Instruments used for the testing of hypothesis of the present research were Functional Impairment Assessment Scale (FIAS) newly constructed in the present study, Urdu Version of Depression and Anxiety in Youth Scale (DAYS, Phyllis et al., 1994) translated in the present research by the researcher, and Urdu Version Psychological Wellbeing Scale Affectometer-2 (Kammann & Flet, 1983) and translated in Urdu by Naheed (1997). The research has been carried out in three parts. Part I deals with the development of an indigenous scale named as Functional Impairment Assessment Scale (FIAS) for children and adolescents to be used in the main study. This part of the research was carried out in f our steps by using independent sample (N=350) that includes: Generation of item pool for the scale; Content Validation and Categorization of items into specified categories; Selection of the final items for the scale; and Establishment of psychometric properties of the scale. Cronbach 's alpha coefficient yielded a significantly positive correlation. All these reliability coefficients are also quite satisfactory. The FIAS also possesses satisfactory content and construct validity as well. The Part II of the present research has been planned to Translation of Depression and Anxiety in Youth Scale (DAYS) into Urdu to be used in present study and to confirm convergent and discriminant validities as well as to establish alpha coefficient reliability of the scale FIAS. Part III which is also main study deals with the hypotheses testing. Sample of the Main study consists of children and adolescents (N = 410) with age range 7-19 years both boys (N = 189) and girls (N = 221) studying in Federal Government Primary & Senior Schools and Model College f or boys and girls of Rawalpindi and Islamabad cities. Whole the Sample was divided xiv into two main groups with respect to the academic achievement. Group 1: consisting of students (N = 205) showing low academic achievement and Group 2: consisting of students (N = 205) showing high level of academic achievement, All the students included in the sample were referred by the class teachers. It was also assumed that student with low academic achievement have high level of emotional disturbance (depression & anxiety) and functional impairment but have low level of psychological wellbeing and life satisfaction. To test these assumptions four types of analyses were applied to data. These analyses included: The reliability estimates of all the scales used in the study was conducted. A correlation matrix was computed in order to see the relationship among variables of depression, anxiety, psychological wellbeing, life satisfaction and functional impairment and low academic achievement. The purpose of the correlation matrix was to yield an initial insight into the pattern of relationships that might exist among the various variables. Since all the variables involved were continuous variables, therefore, Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficients were computed as indices of the magnitude and direction of relationship among various variables. Anova and t-test analysis for independent samples were computed to find the differences between low and high academic achievers on these variables as well as with respect to different demographic variables. Finally, Multiple Logistic Regression Analysis was carried out to study the combined effect of depression, anxiety, psychological wellbeing, life satisfaction and functional impairment on low academic achievement. It has been found that children and adolescents with low academic achievement have comorbidity of depression, an.x;iety and functional impairment. With respect to certain demographic variables it has been found that children and adolescents belonging to low socio-economical status and single parent families have shown significantly high level of emotional problems (depression and anxiety) and functional impairment as well as low academic achievement.