Mental Health from Childhood to Early Adolescence and its impact on School Attendance Problems: A Latent Transition Analysis

Despite concerted efforts among policy makers and practitioners, School Attendance Problems (SAPs) are increasing, with post covid figures indicating higher than ever rates of absenteeism. The aim of this paper was to examine how the developmental trajectory of emotional and behavioural difficulties from childhood to early adolescence might impact the frequency of chronic absenteeism and truancy at 13 years. Using a sample (N = 8570) from the Longitudinal Growing Up In Ireland Study (GUI’98), the research used Latent Class Analysis (LCA) and Latent Transition Analysis (LTA) to examine combinations of mental health symptoms at 9 and 13 years and their developmental impact on SAPs. The Strengths and Difficulty Questionnaire (SDQ) was used to measure a range of emotional and behavioural difficulties at both time points, yielding four mental health classes. Children who remained in High Risk classes, had higher odds of chronic absenteeism and/or truancy. Movement between classes significantly altered the odds of truancy, but not chronic absenteeism, highlighting the importance of differentiating between SAPs and early intervention. A secondary aim was to investigate how family, school and socio-demographic risk factors impacted those trajectories. Family factors were significantly linked to transitions into the co-morbid class, indicating that family risk factors can negatively impact the trajectory of emotional and behavioural difficulties between childhood and adolescence. This paper contributes to current knowledge on the complexities of mental health difficulties in primary school children and their impact on SAPs in early adolescence.