Objective To understand the current situation of parent-child communication among different leftbehind primary and middle school students and its correlation with emotional problems.

Methods A multistage stratified cluster random sampling method was used to select students attending upper elementary school (grades 5-6) and junior high school (grades 1-3) in 14 cities and states in Hunan Province, and a self-administered electronic questionnaire was used to survey the respondents, which mainly included general demographic information, parent-child communication status and emotional problems, etc. The χ²-test was used to compare the status of parent-child communication and emotional problems of the primary and middle school students in different left-behind statuses, and binary logistic regression was used to analyze the correlation between parent-child communication and emotional problems in different left-behind subgroups.

Results mong the 10, 344 study participants, 38.4% were left-behind children. The univariate analysis showed that there were differences in the frequency of parent-child communication, communication duration, communication satisfaction, comprehensive indicators of communication and the occurrence of emotional problems between primary and middle school students and their parents under different left-behind statuses (P < 0.05). The results of multi-factor analysis showed that there was an association between parent-child communication and psychological problems of primary and middle school students, and this association differed in different left-behind status subgroups (P < 0.05).

Conclusion Good parent-child communication is a protective factor against the emotional problems among primary and middle school students in different left-behind statuses. Efforts should be made to enhance parent-child communication for left-behind children by increasing the frequency and duration of communication, improving communication styles, and enhancing parents'cultural literacy in order to reduce the occurrence of psychological problems in left-behind children.