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This study examined the links between adolescents' levels of conflict with family members, schoolteachers and their peers, and sense of school connection with the presence of clinical levels of anxiety among Chinese adolescents. Moreover, this study explored whether gender and school grade moderated these associations. A total of 6,576 adolescents (aged 10-19) participated in a cross-sectional survey in Shenzhen, China. Participants completed a series of questionnaires where they self-reported their anxiety levels, conflict with family members, schoolteachers and peers and sense of school connectedness, and demographics. Using logistic regression analysis to look at the links between conflictual relationships, level of school connectedness and adolescents' anxiety explored. Conflicts with family members such as mothers, fathers, schoolteachers, and their peers were related to higher risk of clinical levels of anxiety, while higher perceived school connection was linked with less clinical levels of anxiety. Gender did not moderate these associations. However, school grade moderated the associations of conflict (i.e. father-child quarrelling, mother's usage of emotional abuse, quarrelling with schoolteachers, teachers' physical abuse, quarrelling and fighting with peers, and peers' emotional abuse) with anxiety among Chinese adolescents, the links being stronger in younger adolescents than older adolescents. Our findings suggest that school grade can be a moderator of the links between levels of conflict and adolescent anxiety. Future longitudinal studies should include school grade as a moderator when identifying the potential predictors for adolescents' anxiety.
He et al. (Wed,) studied this question.