Perceived parental competence and mental health in school-aged adolescents in Colombia: evidence from a well-being and risk approach.

Background: This study examined adolescent-reported perceived parental competence as a relational indicator associated with mental health and well-being in Colombian adolescents. Perceived parental competence was defined as youths' appraisal of caregivers' support, responsiveness, monitoring, communication, and boundary-setting, and was modeled as the dependent variable rather than as a causal determinant of adolescent outcomes. Methods: A quantitative, cross-sectional, analytical study was conducted with 1,005 adolescents from three convenience-selected school settings representing urban Manizales, semi-urban Anserma, and rural Bahía Solano, Colombia. Participation was voluntary and exceeded 95% of eligible students in the selected schools. All measures were administered in Spanish and completed by adolescents as self-report questionnaires. The PANSI was operationalized as a risk-oriented suicidal ideation score by combining negative ideation items with reverse-coded protective ideation items. The CRAFFT-related variable was analyzed as a continuous substance-use screening score, not as a categorical risk classification. Results: Perceived parental competence was positively correlated with life satisfaction (r = 0.362, Conclusions: Youth-perceived parental competence was mainly associated with higher life satisfaction, greater resilience, fewer depressive symptoms, and lower risk-oriented suicidal ideation. The CRAFFT-related score should be interpreted only as a continuous screening indicator derived from the available questionnaire coding, not as a validated categorical classification of substance-use risk. The cross-sectional design precludes causal interpretation, but the findings support assessing adolescent perceptions of parental responsiveness and monitoring as relational indicators in school and community mental health strategies.