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The purpose of this study is to examine the prevalence and association among school refusal behavior, self-esteem, parental school involvement and aggression in punctual and truant school-going adolescents.

A purposive sampling technique and cross-sectional design were used in the current study. Participants comprised three heterogeneous sub-groups: school truant students, park truant students and punctual students.

This study’s findings indicated that father and mother’s school involvement was related to more elevated level of self-esteem for school truant students. Results also indicated that male truant students had more significant probability to school refusal behavior and physical aggression as compared to female truant students. Moreover, results revealed that physical aggression fully mediated among mother’s school involvement, academic self and school refusal behavior in punctual students and school truant students.

There is more need to develop indigenous school-based preventions and interventions aimed at decreasing school truancy in Pakistani context by tackling the predisposing vulnerable factors and supporting and encouraging the protective family and internal factors.

Since the emergence of a coronavirus disease (2019-nCoV) in December 2019, the whole world is in a state of chaos. Isolation strategy with quarantine is a useful model in controlling transmission and rapid spread. As a result, people remained at home and disrupted their outside daily activities. It led to the closure of educational institutes, which is a source of many students to cope with numerous personal and familial issues. This study aims to focus on exploring the relationships and potential mediational pathways between mental health problems, illness perception, anxiety and depression disorders.

The study incorporated snowball sampling techniques through a cross-sectional, Web-based survey and recruited 500 students from different universities of twin cities, Rawalpindi and Islamabad from March 23 to April 15, 2020, during the coronavirus outbreak lockdown. The study used four instruments, Beck Depression Scale, Beck Anxiety Inventory, Revised Illness Perception Questionnaire and The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale for assessing depression, anxiety, illness perception and mental health disorders.

The findings indicated normal (43.2%), mild (20.5%), moderate (13.6%) and severe (22.7%) levels of anxiety prevalence in students. Results specified a normal (65.9%), mild (9.10%), moderate (9.12%) and severe (15.90%) depression prevalence and findings stipulated that anxiety disorder prevalence was higher than depression disorder. The correlational results specified a negative and significant relationship between mental health, illness perception, anxiety and depression symptoms. The multiple regression analysis stated that anxiety and depression disorders mediated the relationship between mental health and present illness perception. The perception of illness exhibited a relation to depression and anxiety disorders.

The study proposed a model to address mental health problems during the lockdown. The (2019-nCoV) illness perception developed mental disorders, including anxiety and depression, which has declined individuals’ mental health. There is an urgent need for ongoing clinical examination and management to address psychological disorders and findings suggest assessing mental health to combatting the pandemic worldwide. Findings recommend developing strategies to promote mental health-care facilities during COVID-19 wide-ranging disasters. These results highlight the impending importance of devising strategies to treat mental health problems.