Association between life satisfaction, problem behaviours and psychological distress in orphaned adolescents: Exploring gender and orphanhood type discrepancies

Bereavement of one or both parents is known to cause many kinds of internalizing and externalizing problems in adolescents. However, less is known about factors that are protective of the mental health of orphaned adolescents and differences by their gender and orphanhood type. To fill these gaps, the current study used a sample from southwestern China to test the association between types of orphans, life satisfaction, adolescents' psychological distress and problem behaviours. The results showed that orphan girls were prone to have lower levels of problem behaviours but higher levels of psychological distress than orphan boys. Female paternal orphans tended to have the highest psychological distress, while male paternal orphans tended to have the lowest psychological distress. In addition, school satisfaction had a stronger association with problem behaviour, and self-satisfaction had a stronger association with psychological distress. Interventions and preventive measures aimed at reducing the psychological distress of orphans could benefit from the findings regarding the correlates of psychological distress and the most vulnerable group among orphans.