PLoS ONE
Volume 10, Issue 12, 2015

Depression among migrant and left-behind children in China in relation to the quality of parent-child and teacher-child relationships (Article) (Open Access)

Guo J. , Ren X. , Wang X. , Qu Z. , Zhou Q. , Ran C. , Hu J.
  • a Department of Sociology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China
  • b School of Education, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China
  • c School of Social Development and Public Policy, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China; Beijing Haidian Institute for Educational Research, Beijing, China
  • d School of Social Development and Public Policy, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
  • e Department of Sociology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China
  • f School of Social Development and Public Policy, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
  • g Community Health Service Center, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China

Abstract

The objective of this study was to examine rates of depression among migrant children (MC) and left-behind children (LBC) as compared to non-left-behind children (NLBC) and also to examine the relationship between depression among these children and the quality of their parent-child and teacher-child relationships. This study collected data from a large sample of 3,759 children aged from 8 to 17 years, including 824 who had been left behind by one parent (LBCO), 423 who had been left behind by both parents (LBCB), 568 MC and 1944 NLBC. Children's Depression Inventory-Short Form was used to measure child depression. Parent-Child Relationship Scale (PCRS) and Teacher-Child Relationship Scale (TCRS) were used to measure the quality of parent-child and teacher-child relationships, respectively. The results showed that the prevalence of depression was 10.5% among NLBC, 13.1%among LBCO, 16.1% among LBCB, and 20.1%among MC. Depression was related to parent-child relationship quality and teacher-child relationship quality. Negative parent-child relationship was more relevant to depression than negative teacherchild relationship among LBCB, while negative teacher-child relationship was the most correlated with depression among MC. © 2015 Guo et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Author Keywords

[No Keywords available]

Index Keywords

China teacher depression Interpersonal Relations regression analysis demography human controlled study depression inventory Faculty human relation Humans migrant Adolescent male female university Parent-Child Relations prevalence major clinical study migration Transients and Migrants child parent relation Child
Link
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84957073104&doi=10.1371%2fjournal.pone.0145606&partnerID=40&md5=c9cf99034f9c2a115b3363ab1ef80011
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0145606
ISSN: 19326203
Cited by: 18
Original Language: English