EMOTIONAL PROBLEMS AND ITS ASSOCIATION WITH ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE AMONG IN-SCHOOL ADOLESCENTS OF IKPOBA-OKHA LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, BENIN CITY, EDO STATE

Abstract

Background Emotional problems are internalizing problems that go a long way in affecting the general functioning of an adolescent both academically and otherwise. Recent studies have looked at the factors that affect students’ academic performance and these have ranged from social to psychological factors such as socioeconomic status, inability to manage course load, anxiety, stress, and personality, poor attitude of teachers, and depression. The academic well-being of students has in recent years been of great concern to parents, teachers, and even the government at large. However, few studies have been done on the relationship between emotional problems and academic performance. Thus; this study was carried out to evaluate the association between depression, anxiety, and academic performance of in-school adolescents. Methodology: This was a cross-sectional study, ten senior secondary schools were randomly selected from the study location. A total of 300 participants were recruited into the study comprising 210 students from public schools and 90 students from private schools all from senior secondary school. A sociodemographic questionnaire was used to obtain background information about the students. The Becks Depression Inventory (BDI-11) was used to assess for depression, Becks Anxiety Inventory (BAI) was used to assess for anxiety and academic performance was measured using the Academic performance questionnaire which was adapted and validated by the researcher. Results: The majority of the participants were between 12-15years of age with a mean age of respondents 14years (SD = 1.39). There were 39.0% males and 61.0% females. 93.3% of the participants were from monogamous homes. Reported prevalence shows Depression was 11.7% and Anxiety was 29.3%. Logistics regression analysis shows that the number of people who lived with asides parents and marital status of parents of study participants was found to be significantly significant with depression (p= 0.007 and 0.021 respectively), the class population was also seen to be significantly related with anxiety. Older adolescents (16-19 years) were seen to have higher academic performance compared to younger adolescents 12 – 15 years (OR=O.63, 95% CI, 0.451-1.701). With a higher academic mean score (2.362), male participants performed better academically compared to female participants (OR=0.19, 95% CI, 0.042-0.173). The class population was found to be significantly associated with the academic performance of study participants (OR=0.20, 95% CI, 0.092-0.311). Anxiety was found to be significantly negatively correlated with academic performance (p = 0.011). Conclusion: This study finding revealed that emotional problem (anxiety) is significantly associated with poor academic performance. It also found that very small and very large class the population was seen to be a predictor for an emotional problem, a statistically significant the relationship was seen to have existed between academic performance and class population. It is therefore recommended that the ministry of education or other bodies involved in school regulations should put into place a policy guiding against overpopulated classrooms this will go a long way in reducing classroom stressors for both the teachers and students thereby improving teaching, learning and performance of students in a long run.