Abstract

This study analyzed the relation between Subjective Well-Being, Adverse Childhood Experiences and Mental Health in Chilean children and adolescents. It evaluated the cumulative effect of adverse experienses and subjective well-being. The sample included 2699 children and adolescents from 11 municipal educational establishments of the Antofagasta Region, Chile. All were in the 6(th) to 12(th) grades; 52.1% (n = 1405) identified as female; ages ranged from 11 to 17 years (Mean = 14.35 years, SD = 1.82). We evaluated Well-Being, Adversities and Mental Health with the Kidscreen-27, Inventary of Adversities and PSC-17, respectively. We used Student t-tests for independent samples and one-way ANOVA for comparisons. Pearson product-moment coefficients were used to estimate the level of association between two or more variables. The results showed significant differences in all dimensions of subjective well-being between those who presented some adversity and those who did not. The cumulative effect of adversities was associated with poor well-being, and mental health was favored when the subjective well-being was higher. We discuss the relation between well-being, adversities and mental health in Chilean children and adolescents.