Considering the Cultural Context of Parental Involvement and Loneliness

We have reviewed the letter to the editor by Dewanti et al.[1]Dewanti S.R. Astuti B. Novitasari Z. The Protective factor of parental involvement in loneliness among Adolescents who have experienced bullying and suicidal behaviour.J Adolesc Health. 2023; 73: 1165Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF Google Scholar Their letter was in response to our paper entitled “Bullying Victimization and Suicidal Behavior among Adolescents in 28 Countries and Territories: A Moderated Mediation Model” (Peprah et al.[2]Peprah P. Asare B.Y.A. Nyadanu S.D. et al.Bullying victimization and suicidal behavior among adolescents in 28 countries and territories: A moderated mediation model.J Adolesc Health. 2023; 73: 110-117Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (0) Google Scholar). In this paper, we reported that bullying was positively associated with suicidal behavior, and loneliness mediated this association, while parental involvement moderated the observed relationship. Dewanti and colleagues' letter specifically discussed the interrelatedness of parental involvement and loneliness in our study and found the observations contradictory. Indeed, they were puzzled as to why countries that reported a high level of parental involvement had a high prevalence of loneliness and vice versa (explained in Table 2 of the original paper). We could deduce from Dewanti et al. that the authors assumed a high level of loneliness to mean low parental involvement. Thus, countries that reported high levels of loneliness would have low parental involvement, and vice versa. While we agree with the authors to some extent, the association may not always be linear. Certain proximate dynamics might have potentially played a critical role in this context, and we explain these likely factors below: First, as Dewanti and colleagues noted, cultural beliefs and value systems, practices, and norms in the countries involved in our study could explain this observation. We appreciate that conceptualizations and understandings of terms, such as loneliness and parental involvement, vary hugely across cultural settings, which may affect the prevalence reported in our study. However, our focus was not on examining the prevalence of parental involvement and loneliness in our study. If that was our focus, we would have discussed plausible reasons for this finding. Second, the reliance on self-reports to measure the concepts of loneliness and parental involvement could be another reason for the interesting contradictory finding. However, we noted this point in the limitations section of the paper that the self-report could lead to recall and social desirability biases. Regardless, we agree with Dewanti and colleagues' suggestion that this interesting contradictory finding requires additional investigation. However, we disagree with the authors that it is feasible to clearly define parental involvement within the context of the wide range of cultural backgrounds in a multicountry research study like ours. The study used data from 28 countries from multiple regions or continents. As a result, there was no way we could provide a single definition of parental involvement based on cultural backgrounds. The Global School-based Student Health Surveys used the same items to measure parental involvement across all the participating countries. We believe this measure offers a good description of the concept. However, we agree that more tailored measures for parental involvement would work if a study is conducted in a single country or setting with similar cultural characteristics. The authors acknowledge the World Health Organization (WHO) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and other United Nations (UN) allies and country-specific institutions for the data sets. The Protective Factor of Parental Involvement in Loneliness Among Adolescents Who Have Experienced Bullying and Suicidal BehaviorJournal of Adolescent HealthVol. 73Issue 6PreviewWe read the article by Peprah et al. [1]. Their research conducted in 28 countries found an important result that bullying is positively associated with suicidal behavior and highlighted that adolescents who have experienced bullying, loneliness, and no parental involvement are more likely to do suicidal behavior. Despite the relevance of this research result to the situation adolescents face, we want to discuss the interrelatedness of parental involvement and loneliness in this study. Full-Text PDF