Levels of Hope, Stigma, Psychological Vulnerability and Positive Mental Health: A Descriptive Study in 8th and 9th-grade Adolescents

Background: /Objectives: This study aimed to characterize adolescents' levels of hope, stigma, psychological vulnerability, and positive mental health, in a school context. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted in a non-probabilistic sample of 189 adolescents from 8th-9th grade in 2021. During the citizenship discipline, adolescents filled out an online self-completion questionnaire for data collection, containing all measurement instruments: Hope Thermometer, AQ-8-C, PVS, and PMHQ. Results: The majority were female (42%) with a mean age of 14 years. Overall adolescents have acceptable levels of hope (M=8; SD=2.58), high level of stigma (M=25,6; SD=5,23), satisfactory positive mental health (M= 118,3; SD=14,8) and moderate psychological vulnerability (M=15.2; SD=6.4). Conclusions: Findings support educational practices and policies that target personalized intervention to promote and improve hope and positive mental health in adolescents. These data are relevant to getting ahead and designing more positive mental health behaviour programs to reinforce adolescents´ modifiable healthy aspects and positive mindsets.