Abstract
Previous research has reported mental health disparities between truant and non-truant adolescents. However, it remains unclear how social support is associated with mental health outcomes across different levels of truancy. We investigate whether social support has similar mental health benefits for all truant adolescents or whether it plays a buffering/moderating role when truancy becomes persistent. Using data from the 2021 Swedish Public Health Survey of Children and Young People (n = 16,102; grades 9 and 11) during the COVID-19 pandemic, we estimate average marginal effects from OLS and logistic regression models. Results show that persistent truants report more psychosomatic complaints and are more prone to social media disorder and self-harm than occasional or non-truants, but these differences diminish substantially when they perceive higher social support. The results have implications for when and how social interventions may protect persistent truants’ mental health.