Mental health variables and positive health practices in early adolescents

A sample of 127 adolescents aged 12 to 14 years and attending a middle school responded to the Personal Lifestyle Questionnaire, the Depression-Dejection subscale of the Profile of Mood States, the Spielberger Trait-Anger Scale, and the Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale in classrooms. Using canonical variate analysis, three canonical variates emerged in the statistical analysis of the set of mental health variables and the set of positive health practice variables, two of which had statistically significant canonical correlations. The findings are consistent with theory and previous research linking positive health practices to depression, anger, and loneliness.