Salud mental escolar: Logros de una intervención preventiva en salud mental en niños y niñas del primer ciclo de enseñanza básica

Abstract

Within the scope of the program "Habilidades para la Vida" (Skills for Life), we identified and evaluated children deemed as at-risk, who participated in the Program's preventive activities. We evaluated if they exhibited a difference in the pre-post intervention in the variables attention, concentration, cognitive achievement, acceptance of the authority, level of activity, social contact, emotional maturity and psycho-social dysfunction; according to the level of attendance to the intervention sessions by boys and girls, parents and teachers. In a sample of one thousand three-hundred and thirty-six students of elementary education from low-income areas, we applied a prospective longitudinal ex-post-facto design, with measurements recorded before and after interventions. We computed the ANOVA of repeated measurements, Chi-squared and multiple linear regression. Results showed positive changes in all computed variables post-intervention and in the group where the teacher attended at least one of the workshop sessions. Similarly, the better attendance level of students to the program was associated with better attendance levels of parents and teachers. We discuss and argue about the scope of the intervention and the implications for future research.