Young adults' self-sufficiency in daily life: the relationship with contextual factors and health indicators

• Published in: BMC Psychology Vol. 8; no. 1; pp. 89 - 12
• Main Authors: van den Toren, Suzanne J, van Grieken, Amy, de Kroon, Marlou L A, Mulder, Wico C, Vanneste, Yvonne T M, Raat, Hein
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England BioMed Central Ltd 28-08-2020; BioMed Central; BMC
• Subjects: Activities of daily living; Adolescent; Adult; Behavior; Child development; Criminology; Cross-Sectional Studies; Demographics; Female; Finances; Health aspects; Health risk behaviors; Humans; Informed consent; Male; Marijuana; Medical research; Mental health; Physical health; Questionnaires; Schools; Self Efficacy; Self sufficiency; Smoking; Sociodemographics; Students; Surveys; Surveys and Questionnaires; Vocational Education; Young Adult; Young adults; Young adults’ functioning in daily life; Netherlands; Health risk behaviors; Finances; Self-sufficiency; Physical health; Mental health; Young adults’ functioning in daily life
• ISSN: 2050-7283; 2050-7283
• DOI: 10.1186/s40359-020-00434-0

Certain factors, such as depressive symptoms and binge drinking, may be linked to young adults' ability to attain an acceptable level of functioning on specific life-domains (i.e. self-sufficiency). We studied the association of contextual factors and health indicators with self-sufficiency in young adults.
We used both baseline (n = 755) and 6-months follow-up (n = 200) self-reported questionnaire data of intermediate vocational education students (16-26 years). The questionnaire included the adapted Dutch self-sufficiency matrix (SSM-D), which addresses self-sufficiency regarding 11 life-domains (e.g. finances and housing). The questionnaire also included potentially associated contextual factors (e.g. socio-demographic characteristics) and health indicators (e.g. sickness absence from school). Ordinal (overall self-sufficiency: self-sufficient on 11, 10, 9 or ≤ 8 life-domains), and logistic (self-sufficiency per life-domain: self-sufficient yes/no) regression models were applied.
The studied population was 18.6 years on average (SD 2.04), and 73.6% were female. Cannabis use was associated with a lower overall self-sufficiency category at baseline (OR = 0.57, 95% CI = 0.33-0.99), as were an increase in sick days (OR = 0.94, 95% CI = 0.91-0.98) and an increase on the scale of depressive symptoms (OR = 0.87, 95% CI = 0.85-0.89). An increase in sick days and an increase on the scale of depressive symptoms were associated with lower odds of being self-sufficient on three and ten life-domains, respectively (p < 0.05). An increase on the scale of depressive symptoms was associated with a lower overall self-sufficiency category 6-months post-baseline (OR = 0.90, 95% CI = 0.86-0.93).
Our findings underline the importance of addressing self-sufficiency, sickness absence, and depressive symptoms, preferably before the transition from adolescence to young adulthood has begun.