Aim: the aim of the study was to assess the possibility of diagnosing mental health status of adolescents according to their self-reports.
Method: 13-years old students from randomly chosen Warsaw schools (N=1123, 54% girls), participated in the school survey. The assessment of health status was based on 3 questions from the HRQOL (Health Related Quality of Life) questionnaire. Respondents were asked to assess the number of days in the past month in which (1) their psychological state was not good, (2) they had problems related to their physical health, and (3) their functioning was impaired because of problems with health. Answers were included in the cluster analysis.
Results: it permitted to identify a group of adolescents (5% of the sample) who cannot function as their peers because of health (mainly mental health) problems and a group of those who report that they often have psychological problems (9%). This negative subjective validation was consistent with the results of tests commonly used as psychological indicators of mental health: self-esteem (based on scores in Rosenberg's scale), sense of coherence (SOC-13) and psychological distress (GHQ -- General Health Questionnaire).
Conclusions: the study results permit to assess the scale of adolescents' needs for psychological support. Adequate service for groups, mentioned above, is necessary because negative self-perception of health and emotional problems in adolescence are risk factors of mental illness in adulthood.