Research Of The Status And Intervention About Left-behind Children's Mental Health In The Rural Area Of Sichuan

Research of the Status and Intervention about Left-behind Children's Mental Health in the Rural Area of SichuanObjectives To learn about the status of Left-behind children's mental health in the rural area of Sichuan, to analyze the factors impacting the Left-behind children's mental health and find out the emphasis of intervention. Based on the emphasis, make out and implement an intervention project. Then evaluate the effect of the intervention, in order to provide feasible model for the intervention of Left-behind children's mental health in the rural area.Methods Two countryside communities of Sichuan province, Datong and Baima were chosen as research fields. This study was divided into two parts: the first part was a cross-sectional investigation of Left-behind children's mental health, to identify the situation of baseline and key points of intervention; the second part was conducting the intervention and evaluating its effects after the related activities.In the first part, 854 students were cluster sampled from the elementary school of the different community. Eysenck Personality Questionnaire and Mental Health Test were used to investigate the baseline situation. 839 effective questionnaires were returned. Self-made questionnaire was used to gather the basic information among the 564 Left-behind children. Data were analyzed using SPSS (13.0 version), to provide base information about Left-behind children, to compare differences on mental health situation between Left-behind children and non-left-behind children, and to analyze main impact factors on Left-behind children's mental health. Qualitative analysis was also used to explore the related factors about Left-behind children's mental health. In the second part, 60 students from Datong and 120 students from Baima were randomly sampled as two groups. One is experimental group (from Datong), receiving practical intervention, and the other is control group, undertaking no special treatment.Results 1.In Sichuan rural area, children left behind by their parents was a common phenomenon,the rate is 67.2 %. Left-behind children displayed significantly higher incidence than the non-left-behind children in mental problems.2. Gender, grade, type of guardian, frequency of getting in touch with their parents, human relationships and the trait of their personality were the influencing factors of Left-behind children's mental health.3. School should be the main field where to conduct the intervention of Left-behind children's mental health. Various participatory activities were hold to improve the mental health level of Left-behind children, such as founding mental health workshop in school, arousing enthusiasm of the community to let all the stake-holders pay attention to the Left-behind children's mental health.4. The intervention showed obvious effect on improving mental health level of Left-behind children, the rates of mental problems checked by Mental Health Test were lower than those in control group (P<0.05). 5. This research indicated an intervention model for the Left-behind children's mental health, which focused on participatory and included schoolcommunity.Conclusions The intervention based on investigation and analysis is practicable and effective. The participatory approaches can validly correct the mental problems of Left-behind children. This intervention model is worth communicating and promoting during Left-behind children's mental health intervention.