Validation of instruments investigating the relationship between stress, psychological strengths, coping and overall psychological well-being among school-going adolescents in the Cape Metropole.

Abstract

Adolescence is documented as a time inevitably characterized by stress and turmoil. From international research, there seems to have been an increase in scholarly attention to aspects of the mental health and psychosocial well-being of the adolescent population. However, literature in this field documents a lack of instruments measuring mental and psychological health validated in the South African context, especially among the children and adolescent population. Numerous calls have been made to develop reliable and valid measures of these issues in late childhood and adolescence. In line with this, the aim of this study was to validate multiple self-screening scales within the South African context and additionally, to investigate the relationship between stress, psychological strengths, coping, and overall psychological well-being among high school-going adolescents from Grades 8 to 11, and aged between 13-19 years in the Cape Metropole.