Paper short abstract:

Adolescents are perceived in public health literature simultaneously in terms of vulnerability and the future, dependence and autonomy, risk and expectations.This paper is an attempt, integrating epidemiological and anthropological perspectives, to understand Catalan adolescents’ emotions, feelings and mood states as phenomena with “social lives"

Paper long abstract:

Adolescents are perceived in public health literature simultaneously in terms of vulnerability and the future, dependence and autonomy, risk and expectations. A domain public health regard with a certain degree of concern is that of emotions and negative mood states because of its relationship to adolescents' mental health and risk behaviours. This paper is an attempt to understand Catalan adolescents' emotions, feelings and mood states as phenomena with "social lives". The first phase of our study consists of analysis of the social determinants of mood states of the adolescents interviewed by the PIF (a longitudinal study of families focusing especially on factors affecting the well-being of children and adolescents ). The results indicate the existence of two components of adolescent distress, interpreted here as (1) social isolation, disaffiliation, or structural difficulty in reproducing and maintaining the social self, expressed as feelings of sadness, solitude and boredom; and (2) a sense of inadequacy in relation to parental and adult expectations, expressed as feeling nervous, pressured, overwhelmed, and too busy to keep up with everyday life. The second phase focuses on chances and challenges of integrating qualitative and quantitative data and methods in the study of adolescent mental distress. The conclusions include recommendations concerning the importance of taking anthropological regard into account in adolescent health policies.