Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on mental health and health behaviors in Swedish adolescents.
Scand J Public Health
; 50(1): 26-32, 2022 Feb.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1261257
ABSTRACT
AIMS:
There is an urgent need to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescent mental health and health behaviours. To date, there are no such studies on Swedish adolescents. As COVID-19 emerged in the middle of our ongoing 2-year follow-up examination of the Study of Adolescence Resilience and Stress, we had the unique opportunity to use the corona outbreak as a 'natural experiment' to study the impact of COVID-19 on 15-year-old adolescents in Sweden.METHODS:
Adolescents (baseline age 13.6±0.4 years) were recruited from schools in western Sweden (during the COVID-19 outbreak schools were kept open for those under 16 years of age). The COVID-19 pandemic reached Sweden on 31 January 2020. A total of 1316 adolescents answered the 2-year follow-up survey before (unexposed to COVID-19 pandemic, controls) and 584 after 1 February 2020 (COVID19-exposed). Data on stress, psychosomatic symptoms, happiness, relationships with parents and peers, school and health behaviours were collected.RESULTS:
Adolescents reported higher levels of stress and psychosomatic symptoms and lower levels of happiness at follow-up compared to baseline. These changes occurred to a similar extent in both the control and COVID-19-exposed groups. Likewise, the COVID-19-exposed group showed no deterioration in peer relations or relations with parents versus controls. We did not find any significant differences between groups regarding sleep duration and physical activity.Conclusions:
Swedish adolescents exposed to COVID-19 during most of 2020 showed no differences in longitudinal changes in mental health, relationships with parents and peers, and health behaviours compared to those not exposed to COVID-19.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
COVID-19
Type of study:
Cohort study
/
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Randomized controlled trials
Limits:
Adolescent
/
Humans
Country/Region as subject:
Europa
Language:
English
Journal:
Scand J Public Health
Journal subject:
Social Medicine
/
Public Health
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
14034948211021724
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