Perfectionism and School Non‐Attendance Reasons in Adolescents: A Latent Profile Analysis

INTRODUCTION: Limited prior knowledge exists regarding perfectionism and other relevant educational variables, such as the wide spectrum of School Attendance Problems. However, perfectionism has been related to somatic complaints and symptoms, school burnout, and negative emotionality. Therefore, this study analyzes the association between this personality trait and reasons for school non-attendance, using a person-centered approach. METHOD: The sample consisted of 681 students aged 12 to 18 (M = 14.98, SD = 1.84), of whom 295 were boys, 374 were girls, and 12 self-identified as others. They completed the Child and Adolescent Perfectionism Scale and the Assessing Reasons for School Non-attendance questionnaire. RESULTS: Latent profile analysis was used to obtain perfectionistic profiles from a combination of socially prescribed perfectionism and self-oriented perfectionism. It reported three perfectionistic profiles: Low perfectionism, moderate perfectionism, and high perfectionism. The high perfectionism group scored higher than the other groups on all of the reasons for school non-attendance (somatic symptoms, subjective health complaints, truancy, and school refusal). CONCLUSIONS: Perhaps when failing to achieve their academic goals, high-perfectionist students appear to manifest negative and disproportionate reactions through somatic symptoms and complaints. In addition, they may not want to attend to school to avoid showing their weaknesses and mistakes in public or suffering negative emotional states.