Resilience And Its Protective Factors For Left-behind Children In Rural Area

Objective: Understanding the status of resilience on left-behind children in rural area, andexploring the protective factors of their resilience, so as to provide scientific basis forimproving the level of resilience and promote their physical and mental health development.Methods: A random sample of1926students aged10~18years old was drawn from sixschools of two cross-sectional townships with a large of outworkers population bycross-sectional study in MaCheng City. The students from primary, middle and high schoolswere surveyed by used the questionnaires included the self-designed questionnaire, HealthKids Resilience Assessment (HKRA) and Mental Health Inventory of Middle-SchoolStudents (MMHI-60). Describing analysis, t test and chi-square test were used to understandthe status of resilience and mental health on left-behind children in rural area. Multipleregression analysis was applied to select the protective factors and structural equationmodeling was used to investigate the effects of resilience.Results: There were1926valid questionnaires from2000questionnaires and the valid rate was96.3%. The mean age of respondents was14.26±2.28years.(1)Basic information description:1031children (53.5%) left in rural areas were investigated,61.4%of the children were left over5years, and most of them reunited with their relatives twice a year. The most of their guardianswere female, whose education levels were lower than the high school.(2)Comparison between left-behind children and non-left-behind children:①Demographics:The left-behind children had higher levels of household monthly income and lower levels of fathers’ education than non-left-behind peers (P<0.05). There was no significant difference ongender, age and grade between them (P>0.05).②Resilience trait: The overall resilience statusof left behind children was significantly better than that of non-left behind children (P<0.05).③Mental health status: There was no significant difference in mental health symptom factorsbetween left-behind children and non-left-behind children（P>0.05）.(3)Influence factors of mental health for left-behind children: The left-behind children hadsignificant difference in their migrant relative, outside time, types of nursing, frequency ofcontacting and reunion compared with non-left-behind children（P<0.05）.(4)Relationships between resilience and mental health: the scores of mental health symptomfactors for higher resilience group were lower than that of lower resilience group（P<0.05）.(5)Protective factors of resilience: There were some protective factors including self-esteem,self-efficacy, positive coping styles and social support for resilience.(6)Pathway of resilience: There were significant positive correlations between the resilienceand its protective factors, and the protective factors had influences on mental health through themediator effects of resilience, likewise there were remarkable negative correlations betweenresilience and mental problems.Conclusion: The overall resilience status of left behind children was better than that of non-leftbehind children. The levels of mental health for left-behind children had significant differencein some factors of left behind such as outside time of their relative, reunite frequency and theirguardians. And the protective factors such as self-esteem, self-efficacy, positive coping stylesand social support influence the mental health through the mediator effects of resilience.