Subjective well- being levels, general health patterns and patterns of psychological symptoms of students at high schools of sciences and general high schools on the basis of their sexual and sociometric status

The purpose of this study is to investigate subjective well- being levels, general health patterns and patterns of psychological symptoms of adolescents attending high schools of sciences and unclassified general high schools on the basis of sexual and sociometric variations.The study was conducted among 544 adolescents attending ninth, tenth and eleventh grades of high schools of sciences and general high schools. In the study, ?Brief Symptom Inventory? and ?General Health Questionnaire- 12? were employed to analyse psychological symptoms and general health patterns of adolescents and ?Subjective Well- Being Scale (High School Version)? was used to determine levels of subjective well- being. In order to determine the sociometric status of the adolescents involved in the research, ?Sociometric Status Scale? was employed. Two- Way Anova Test, Independent Samples t- Test and Mann- Whitney U Test were used for statistical analyses.The research revealed that there are differences between female and male adolescents in terms of psychological symptoms. The points that girls scored on the subscales of The Brief Symptom Inventory, that is ?Anxiety,? ?Depression,? ?Negative Self- Conception? ?Somatisation? and ?Hostility? and stress levels were observed to be higher than those of the boys. Furthermore, it was realised that students at high schools of sciences are better than those at general high schools in terms of their psychological conditions with the latter group reporting more psychological problems. The points of the general high school adolescents on the subscales of ?Depression? and ?Somatisation? and their levels of experiencing these symptoms are higher than those of adolescents of high schools of sciences. Moreover, general health patterns of students of high schools of sciences are better than those of general high school students. The variation of subjective well- being level tested in the study revealed a difference between sexes with male adolescents proving to be better in subjective well- being than girls. Last but not least, the well- being levels of adolescents accepted by their peers were observed to be higher than those rejected by their peers.Keywords: Adolescence, Subjective Well-Being, Psychological Symptoms, General Health Patterns, Sociometric Status