Peer-reviewed article

Perceived parental competence and mental health in school-aged adolescents in Colombia: evidence from a well-being and risk approach.

Agudelo-Hernández F, Guapacha-Montoya M, Delgado-Reyes AC, Aguirre-Aldana L · 13 Jul 2026

Abstract

Background This study examined adolescent-reported perceived parental competence as a relational indicator associated with mental health and well-being in Colombian adolescents. Perceived parental competence was defined as youths' appraisal of caregivers' support, responsiveness, monitoring, communication, and boundary-setting, and was modeled as the dependent variable rather than as a causal determinant of adolescent outcomes. Methods A quantitative, cross-sectional, analytical study was conducted with 1,005 adolescents from three convenience-selected school settings representing urban Manizales, semi-urban Anserma, and rural Bahía Solano, Colombia. Participation was voluntary and exceeded 95% of eligible students in the selected schools. All measures were administered in Spanish and completed by adolescents as self-report questionnaires. The PANSI was operationalized as a risk-oriented suicidal ideation score by combining negative ideation items with reverse-coded protective ideation items. The CRAFFT-related variable was analyzed as a continuous substance-use screening score, not as a categorical risk classification. Results Perceived parental competence was positively correlated with life satisfaction (r = 0.362, p < 0.001) and resilience (r = 0.283, p < 0.001) and negatively correlated with depressive symptoms (r = -0.278, p < 0.001) and risk-oriented suicidal ideation (r = -0.354, p < 0.001). The continuous substance-use screening score showed a small positive bivariate association with perceived parental competence (r = 0.114, p < 0.001), but it was not retained in the final regression model. The final model retained life satisfaction, origin, resilience, risk-oriented suicidal ideation, depressive symptoms, and frustration tolerance, explaining 26.4% of the variance in perceived parental competence. Conclusions Youth-perceived parental competence was mainly associated with higher life satisfaction, greater resilience, fewer depressive symptoms, and lower risk-oriented suicidal ideation. The CRAFFT-related score should be interpreted only as a continuous screening indicator derived from the available questionnaire coding, not as a validated categorical classification of substance-use risk. The cross-sectional design precludes causal interpretation, but the findings support assessing adolescent perceptions of parental responsiveness and monitoring as relational indicators in school and community mental health strategies.