Adolescent mental health, behavior problems, and academic achievement.

Prior research on the association of mental health and behavior problems with academic achievement is limited because it does not consider multiple problems simultaneously, take co-occurring problems into account, and control for academic aptitude. We addressed these limitations using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N = 6,315). We estimated the associations of depression, attention problems, delinquency, and substance use with two indicators of academic achievement (high school GPA and highest degree received) with controls for academic aptitude.