Young carers are children and adolescents who provide care to other family members or friends, taking over responsibilities that are usually associated with adulthood. There is emerging but still scarce knowledge worldwide about the phenomenon of young carers and the impact of a caring role on their health, social and personal development spheres. This paper provides an overview of the main results from the ME-WE project, which is the first European research and innovation project dedicated to adolescent young carers (AYCs) (15-17 years).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study investigates whether there are differences in quality of life-i.e., psychosomatic complaints and life satisfaction-between schoolchildren with and without a chronically ill or disabled parent at home.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMany adolescents worldwide (indirectly) grow up with a chronic disease, which may impact their functioning and wellbeing. The objective of this study is to assess whether adolescents with a (family member with a) chronic disease differ from their healthy counterparts in terms of psychosocial functioning. Data from the Dutch 2013 HBSC-survey were used, including 7168 adolescents (Mean = 13.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the present study, we investigated whether fathers' and mothers' parenting behavior is differentially related to parental factors (such as age and employment), child factors (age and gender) as well as social support. Parents reported on their use of a broad range of parenting behaviors, including affection, responsivity, explaining, autonomy, support, rewarding, and punishing. We used survey data from the Netherlands for 1197 mothers and 903 fathers of children aged 2 to 17.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: To assess the well-being and substance use of sexual minority adolescents growing up in a tolerant society, we examined differences among same-sex attracted (SSA), those who do not know their attraction yet (not yet attracted [NYA]), and heterosexual Dutch adolescents.
Methods: Unadjusted and adjusted logistic and linear multilevel analyses were performed using representative data of the 2013 Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children study (N = 5,995; 11-16 years old). The adjusted analyses controlled for sociodemographics (gender, age, education type, ethnicity, urbanicity, and religion).
Background: The quality of communication with parents is a determinant of health and well-being during adolescence, being predictive of self-esteem, self-rated health and the ability to navigate health risk behaviours.
Methods: This article describes trends in adolescent's (aged 11, 13 and 15 years) perception of communication with mothers and fathers by gender across 32 European and North American countries from 2002 to 2010. Analyses were performed on 425 699 records employing a General Linear Model (MANOVA).