Rimienė, V.

Background. Thepriority for today's educational psychologists in Lithuanian schools is to promote psycho-educational activities aimed at fostering children’s well-being. School psychologists are to provide services for, and consult with, children and adolescents with mental health challenges, in order to facilitate their transitions to positive developmental trajectories. Therefore, it is important to test the construct validity of the adolescent social emotional health survey (SEHS-S) in a Lithuanian sample.

Objective. To investigate the social emotional health, empathy, and self-esteem of a Lithuanian adolescent sample using the adolescent Social Emotional Health Survey (SEHS-S), as well as to perform regression and confirmatory factor analysis.

Design. We used the Social Emotional Health Survey-Secondary (SEHS-S)(Furlong et al., 2014), the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI)(Davis, 1980), and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (SES) (M. Rosenberg, 1989). The sample was comprised of 935 students (12-18 years old) from various Lithuanian schools: 482 boys and 453 girls. 

Results. The self–esteem of the adolescent boys was higher than that of the adolescent girls. A positive correlation between the adolescents’ social emotional health and their self-esteem and empathy was identified.  The strongest predictors of the adolescents’ social and emotional health included empathic concern, self-esteem, and perspective-taking. The confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the validity of the structural model of the Lithuanian version of the SEHS-S survey.

Conclusion.The findings of the regression and confirmatory factor analysis supported the use of the SEHS-S as a valid and reliable instrument for mental health research with the Lithuanian adolescents. School psychologists will be able to use the Lithuanian version of SEHS–S surveyto monitor adolescent social emotional health.