Identifying Risk Profiles of School Refusal Behavior: Differences in Social Anxiety and Family Functioning Among Spanish Adolescents

Abstract

School attendance problems negatively affect students’ development. This study attempted to identify different school refusal behavior profiles and to examine their relationship with three dimensions of social anxiety (fear of negative evaluation, social avoidance and distress in new situations, and social avoidance and distress that is experienced more generally in the company of peers) and the perception of family functioning. Participants included 1842 Spanish adolescents (53% girls) aged 15–18 years (M = 16.43; SD = 1.05). The School Refusal Assessment Scale—Revised (SRAS-R), the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents (SAS-A), and the Family APGAR Scale (APGAR: Adaptation, Partnership, Growth, Affection, and Resolve) were administered. Latent class analysis revealed four school refusal behavior profiles: non-school refusal behavior, high school refusal behavior, moderately low school refusal behavior, and moderately high school refusal behavior. Analyses of variance (ANOVA) indicated that adolescents’ with the profile of high school refusal behavior showed higher scores in all the subscales of social anxiety. In contrast, the non-school refusal behavior group revealed higher scores in the perception of good family functioning, whereas the high school refusal behavior profile obtained the lowest scores in this scale. These findings suggest that students who reject school are at a higher risk of developing social anxiety problems and manifesting family conflicts. These students should be prioritized in order to attend to their needs, promoting self-help to overcome social anxiety and family problems with the purpose of preventing school refusal behaviors.