Aims: To examine associations between multiple clinically diagnosed mental disorders among children in Sweden and educational achievements at the end of ninth grade.

Methods: Data from Swedish administrative registers were utilised. Diagnoses of specific mental disorders (unipolar depression, mood, anxiety, obsessive compulsive, eating, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) were used as exposure variables. Educational achievements were assessed in terms of teacher-assigned school grades and eligibility for upper secondary education. The sample comprised 266,664 individuals (49% females) born in 2000 to 2002 who were alive and resident in Sweden in 2017. Exposed and unexposed individuals were compared in terms of outcome variables by fitting linear and logistic regression models.

Results: The results revealed negative associations between all the examined mental disorders and educational achievements, except for positive associations between eating disorders and grades among female students. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder was the most strongly associated disorder in terms of non-successful completion of compulsory education, among both male and female students (odds ratio (OR): 3.58 (95% confidence interval (CI), 3.42 to 3.74) and 4.31 (95% CI, 4.07 to 4.57), respectively). This was followed by unipolar depression among males (OR: 2.92 (95% CI, 2.60 to 3.28)) and anxiety disorder among females (OR: 2.68 (95% CI, 2.49 to 2.88)). Obsessive compulsive disorder had the weakest negative association with educational achievements among both males (OR: 1.48 (95% CI, 1.01 to 2.17)) and females (OR: 1.38 (95% CI, 1.11 to 1.72)).

Conclusions: Specific diagnosed mental disorders have varying, largely disadvantageous, associations with educational achievements of students in Sweden that differ between males and females.

Introduction: The study investigated the directionality of associations between mental health problems and school grades across two timepoints (T1 and T2) during mid to late adolescence; inschool year 9 (ages 15–16) and school year 12 (ages 17–18). The study also investigated variation in the associations as a function of gender and across socioeconomic groups.

Methods: Longitudinal data from several Swedish administrative registers were utilised. Information on prescribed psychotropic drugs was used as a proxy for mental health problems, and teacher-assigned school grades were used to measure academic performance. The study sample comprised 85 186 individuals (50.7% girls) born in 1991 who were alive and resident in Sweden in 2010. Directions of associations were analysed by estimating a series of cross-lagged path models.

Results: The model with the best fit to data showed that higher school grades at T1 were associated with relatively lower rates of mental health problems by T2, for both boys and girls, mainlyi n socioeconomic groups with the highest educated parents. This association was equal in size across all of the socioeconomic groups that were explored.

Conclusions: Performing well in school is equally important for boys’ and girls’ subsequent mental health, but only among adolescents in socioeconomic groups with the highest educated parents. The results underscore the importance of promoting opportunities for youth to do as well as theycan in school.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of parental health problems on the probability of youths leaving upper secondary education before completion in Sweden, and to investigate potential gender differences in these effects. Medical and social microdata from Swedish administrative registers were used. The study population consisted of individuals born between 1987 and 1990 (N = 398,748) who were still alive and residing in Sweden in 2010. We employed a quasi-experimental pre-test post-test study design. Logistic regression was used to analyse the relationships between indicators of parental illness and young people's early school leaving in relation to health and sociodemographic confounders. Having had a mother or father with psychiatric, but not somatic, illness that necessitated hospitalisation after completing compulsory schooling was significantly associated with an increased probability of leaving upper secondary education. We found no significant gender-specific interaction effects. The existence of these effects in Sweden, a country with an extensive institutional welfare system, suggests that similar but more pronounced effects may exist in regions lacking such systems.

BACKGROUND: The presence of health problems in a child is known to be negatively associated with later academic achievement, but less is known about the educational outcomes for siblings of children in poor health. The study investigated how having a sibling with health problems affects a healthy sibling’s academic achievement.

METHODS: We utilized medical and social microdata from Swedish administrative population registers. Our sample consisted of N = 115 106 individuals (51.3% boys) born in 1990 in Sweden. We compared children with ill siblings to children whose siblings did not have poor health. Siblings’ hospital admissions and the academic achievements of the healthy sibling during their final year of compulsory education (at the age of 15-16) were analyzed using linear and logistic regression in relation to individual health- and family-related confounders.

RESULTS: Sibling hospitalization was significantly associated with lower overall grade points (b = –10.73, p < .001) and an increased odds ratio (OR) of ineligibility for upper secondary education (OR = 1.42, 95% CI = 1.31-1.52, p < .001).

CONCLUSIONS: School and health personnel should also consider the needs of healthy siblings during their work with children in poor health, because they too can be disadvantaged.