Sosyoekonomik zorlukların, silahlı çatışmaların ve ailevi faktörlerin gençlerin psikolojik iyi oluşları üzerindeki rolü

Exposure to adversity poses a major risk to the psychological well-being in youth and leads to immediate, and in some cases prolonged psychological problems. The investigation of how these adverse experiences are associated with child outcomes is critical for the formulation of remedial strategies, interventions, and policies to improve the psychological well-being in youth. With this broad perspective, the current thesis aimed to investigate the psychological well-being of youth living in the east of Turkey, where socioeconomic adversity, low-intensity armed conflict, and familial risk factors (e.g., family violence, maternal psychological distress) might pose a threat to their well-being and development. Study I investigated the emotional and behavioral problems in children in relation to their exposure to the potential risk factors in the region - poverty, armed conflict, and family violence. According to caregiver reports, children manifested moderate levels of internalizing problems, externalizing problems, total problems, and post-traumatic stress symptoms, and they were exposed to extreme poverty, as well as frequent armed conflict events and family violence. The findings showed that armed conflict experiences predicted the level of emotional and behavioral problems in children. Yet, family violence was the most robust predictor of the level of externalizing problems and total problems in children, above and beyond poverty and armed conflict. These findings suggested that violence in the family is crucial for the psychological well-being of children as political violence, and any intervention program tailored to improve the psychological well-being of these children should address not just their exposure to armed conflict but also family violence experiences. Study II focused on the executive functions (EF) and problem behaviors in children in relation to their exposure to poverty, armed conflict experiences, and maternal psychological distress and explored how these risk factors exerted their effects on these child outcomes. The findings revealed that children's scores in EF tasks were low, and EF was negatively associated with problem behaviors (i.e., internalizing and externalizing problems), armed conflict experiences, and maternal psychological distress. Further, maternal psychological distress appeared to be one of the mechanisms that poverty and armed conflict exerted their effects on children's EF skills as well as on psychological well-being. This result suggested that interventions focused on building parental well-being would be essential to promote EF skills and psychological well-being in children. The third study of the current thesis examined the cumulative risk and promotive factors for externalizing behavior in adolescents and tested three models of resiliency (i.e., compensatory, risk-protective) in this sample. Results showed that exposure to multiple risks increased the level of externalizing behavior in adolescents, and the cumulative promotive factors counteracted the negative effect of cumulative risk by directly reducing the level of externalizing behavior. Supporting the risk-protective model of resiliency, our findings revealed that promotive factors operated as protective and moderated the association between risk exposure and externalizing behavior in adolescents. These results have important implications for possible future interventions and policies aiming to build resilience in disadvantaged youth. Altogether, the current thesis contributed to the existent literature on child development in war zones by providing additional comparative information from a low-intensity armed conflict zone, rather than a full-blown war; investigating new aspects of child outcomes such as EF; exploring the mechanisms underlying poor emotional and behavioral outcomes in children; and testing models of resiliency in this sample. Furthermore, this study adds to the progress of developmental science and practice in Turkey by investigating youth psychological well-being in the east of Turkey for the first time. The findings of this thesis can be used in the formulation of effective prevention and intervention programs to improve psychological well-being in youth.