Mental health of Chinese adolescents in different Chinese societies

This paper attempts to review and integrate existing research findings on Chinese adolescent mental health. Based on a comprehensive survey of the relevant studies in the literature, several conclusions can be drawn: a) most of the studies on Chinese adolescent mental health have been geared toward the study of adolescent psychopathology rather than adolescent positive mental health; b) the existing studies are seldom guided by well-articulated theoretical models; c) although the data arising from the existing studies do not lend strong support for the hypothesis that a majority of Chinese adolescents are 'tumultuous', the available evidence generally suggests that one-tenth to one-third of Chinese adolescents might be psychologically 'at-risk'; d) while Chinese adolescent mental health has been found to be related to a number of personal, psychological, stress-related, family-related, education-related and societal factors, there is a severe lack of integrative models to accommodate the observed relationships; and e) most of the existing studies on Chinese adolescent mental health are plagued with methodological problems. Possible directions for future research are discussed.