Does socioeconomic status moderate the relationships between school connectedness with psychological distress, suicidal ideation and attempts in adolescents?

- High school connectedness is linked to lower psychological distress and suicidality.
- The link between school connectedness and distress varies with subjective SES.
- At higher subjective SES, high school connectedness is linked with lower distress.

ObjectiveResearch has indicated that school connectedness acts as a buffer against depressive symptoms and suicidality. However, little is known about the role of socioeconomic status (SES) on these links. The present study examined the moderating role of subjective SES and parental education on the relationships between school connectedness and psychological distress, suicidal ideation and suicide attempts.MethodsData were gathered from 4955 participants within the 2013 cycle of the Ontario Students Drug Use and Health Survey, a province-wide repeated school-based survey of students in grade 7 to 12 across Ontario, Canada.ResultsResults indicated that higher subjective SES is associated with high levels of school connectedness. Subjective SES is also a significant moderator of the association between school connectedness and psychological distress, but not between school connectedness and suicidal ideation or attempts. At low subjective SES, there was no difference in risk of psychological distress between students with high and low levels of school connectedness. However, at higher subjective SES, students with high levels of school connectedness have lower odds of psychological distress than those with low levels of school connectedness. The associations between school connectedness and each of the mental health outcomes did not significantly vary with parental education.ConclusionsThese findings suggest that the beneficial effects of school connectedness on mental health problems may be more strongly related to adolescents' status beliefs rather than parental education. Future research is needed to better understand the mechanism through which subjective SES and school connectedness influence psychological distress.