Investigating school refusal in the Italian context: validation of the SCREEN and the mediating role of positive and negative affect in the relationship between resilient coping and school refusal.

Considering the increasing Italian school drop‐out rates, this study aims to analyze the phenomenon of school refusal, focusing on the main individual factors that characterize it. School refusal is a multifactorial issue involving emotional, affective and social difficulties. Given these considerations, the research is divided into two consecutive studies. Study 1 examines the factor structure of the SCREEN (Gallé‐Tessonneau and Gana 2019) by comparing the original version, the 18‐item three‐factor version, and 12‐item short form four‐factor version, in order to identify the best‐fitting structure for Italian adolescent students (N = 351; Mage = 15.8; SD = 0.99). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) suggests that the short four‐factor version is the best fitting model for the Italian context. Study 2 investigated the mediating role of positive and negative affect in the relationship between resilient coping and the four dimensions of school refusal (N = 581; Mage = 16.1; SD = 1.00). A Structural Equation Model (SEM) with latent variables was used to evaluate the associations between variables. Results suggest that resilient coping is associated with positive and negative affect, which are in turn differentially associated with dimensions of school refusal. Study highlights the importance of early identification and intervention, suggesting that fostering resilient coping strategies and positive affect at school may be associated with lower risk of avoidance and better school well‐being.