Volume 2022, Issue 185-186 pp. 43-65
REVIEW

School refusal and anxiety among children and adolescents: A systematic scoping review

Işıl Tekin

Işıl Tekin

Department of Psychological Counselling and Guidance, Faculty of Education Sciences, Istanbul Medeniyet University, Istanbul, Turkey

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Selami Aydın

Corresponding Author

Selami Aydın

The Department of English Language Teaching, Faculty of Educational Sciences, Istanbul Medeniyet University, Istanbul, Turkey

Correspondence

Selami Aydın, The Department of English Language Teaching, Faculty of Education Sciences, Istanbul Medeniyet University, Istanbul, Turkey.

Email: [email protected]

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First published: 25 September 2022
Citations: 29

Abstract

School refusal and anxiety are considerable problems among children and adolescents. While numerous studies were published, no review on the issue has been conducted to holistically reveal the current research results. This study uses a systematic scoping review design and aims to synthesize the results of the current studies on seeking an answer to the relationship between school refusal and anxiety to make recommendations for teachers, school counselors and administrators, and educational researchers for further research. Included studies were designed as qualitative, experimental, correlational, descriptive, or mixed-method, while studies designed as a thematic review, systematic review, and meta-analysis were excluded. The study identified 30 research articles that met the inclusion criteria within this scope. Results showed that anxiety is a prevalent factor associated with school refusal, whereas school refusal is directly and closely related to state and trait anxiety, social anxiety, school anxiety, and separation anxiety. Another finding was that school punishment, bad family functioning, parental depression, and parental anxiety are strong predictors of school refusal.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

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