Scoping review and concept analysis of early adolescents’ emotional skills: Towards development of a music therapy assessment tool

ABSTRACT

Introduction

This paper describes the concept and content of early adolescents’ emotional skills among the general population. The research literature contains many emotional skills-related terms with overlapping meanings, and it can be challenging to determine which are applicable for example, to a music therapy assessment tool. This study comprises the first phase of developing an assessment tool for early adolescents’ emotional skills, namely, determining what is to be assessed.

Method

A scoping review of the literature is presented with written definitions of emotional skills-related terms, as well as a concept analysis of the terms performed using Walker and Avant’s method.

Results

The components of early adolescents’ emotional skills are presented. Early adolescents’ emotional skills comprise several skill components as presented in the current research literature. These components help in understanding the multifaceted entirety of emotional skills.

Discussion

This paper presents the term emotional skills as a practical, general term that includes the content of other emotional skills-related terms. The concept analysis’ outcome, the components of early adolescents’ emotional skills, is applicable to future research as a theoretical framework for developing an assessment tool for early adolescents’ emotional skills. The components are also useful for music therapy clinicians to analyse their work with early adolescents and to communicate in detail the phenomenona related to emotional skills in therapy.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotional skills
• early adolescents
• scoping review
• concept analysis
• assessment development

Acknowledgements

This study was completed in partial fulfilment of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland.

Disclosure statement

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

No funding was received for this study.

Notes on contributors

Maija Salokivi

Maija Salokivi, MA, is a music therapist and a doctorand of University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She has been working several years with children and adolescence with psychiatric and neurological problems. The aim of her PhD dissertation is to develop an assessment instrument for emotional skills of early adolescents in the context of music therapy. Her research interests include assessment, assessment development, emotional skills, children and adolescents.

Sanna Salanterä

Sanna Salanterä, PhD, RN, Professor of Clinical Nursing Science, Vice Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at University of Turku and Nurse Director at Turku University Hospital. She is specialized in clinical nursing science, nursing and patient decision-making, smart technology in nursing, pain nursing, health service research, children´s nursing and empowering patient education. She leads the research programs “Health producing basic care with smart technology” and “Health producing health promotion with smart technology.” Both projects consist of several sub projects.

Esa Ala-Ruona

Esa Ala-Ruona, PhD, is a music therapist and psychotherapist working as a senior researcher at the Music Therapy Clinic for Research and Training, at University of Jyväskylä. His research interests are music therapy assessment and evaluation, and in studying musical interaction and clinical processes in improvisational psychodynamic music therapy, and furthermore the progress and outcomes of rehabilitation of stroke patients in active music therapy. Currently he is the president of the European Music Therapy Confederation. He regularly gives lectures and workshops on music therapy both nationally and internationally.