Huang BW, Guo PH, Liu JZ, Leng SX, Wang L. Investigating adolescent mental health of Chinese students during the COVID-19 pandemic: Multicenter cross-sectional comparative investigation. World J Psychiatry 2022; 12(11): 1323-1334 [PMID: 36438680 DOI: 10.5498/wjp.v12.i11.1323]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Li Wang, PhD, Professor, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences/School of Basic Medicine Peking Union Medical College, No. 5 Dongdan Santiao, Dongcheng District, Beijing 100730, China. pumcwangli@163.com
Research Domain of This Article
Public, Environmental & Occupational Health
Article-Type of This Article
Observational Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Psychiatry. Nov 19, 2022; 12(11): 1323-1334 Published online Nov 19, 2022. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v12.i11.1323
Investigating adolescent mental health of Chinese students during the COVID-19 pandemic: Multicenter cross-sectional comparative investigation
Bo-Wen Huang, Pei-Han Guo, Jian-Zhou Liu, Sean X Leng, Li Wang
Bo-Wen Huang, Jian-Zhou Liu, Department of General Surgery, State Key Laboratory of Complex Severe and Rare Diseases, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Science and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100730, China
Pei-Han Guo, Senior High School, The Experimental High School Attached to Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100032, China
Sean X Leng, Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School, Baltimore, MD 21205, United States
Li Wang, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences/School of Basic Medicine Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100730, China
Author contributions: Huang BW and Guo PH contributed equally to this work; Huang BW conceived the project and wrote the manuscript; Guo PH designed the study and acquired data; Liu JZ analyzed data; Leng SX and Wang L edited the manuscript; and all authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.
Institutional review board statement: This study was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of Peking Union Medical College Hospital.
Informed consent statement: The participants provided their electronic informed consent to participate in this study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: Data of the studies are not publicly available but might be shared upon request from the corresponding author.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement-checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement-checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Li Wang, PhD, Professor, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences/School of Basic Medicine Peking Union Medical College, No. 5 Dongdan Santiao, Dongcheng District, Beijing 100730, China. pumcwangli@163.com
Received: August 1, 2022 Peer-review started: August 1, 2022 First decision: September 4, 2022 Revised: September 16, 2022 Accepted: October 14, 2022 Article in press: October 14, 2022 Published online: November 19, 2022 Processing time: 108 Days and 5.1 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused significant challenges for adolescent mental health.
AIM
To survey adolescent students in China to determine the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on their mental health.
METHODS
A multicenter cross-sectional comparative investigation was conducted in March 2022. We collected demographic information and survey data related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Patient Health Questionnaire-9 and Generalized Anxiety Disorder Screener scales were used for objective assessment of depression and anxiety.
RESULTS
We collected mental health questionnaires from 3184 students. The investigation demonstrated that adolescents most strongly agreed with the following items: Increased time spent with parents, interference with academic performance, and less travel. Conversely, adolescents most strongly disagreed with the following items: Not having to go to school, feeling an increase in homework, and not socializing with people; 34.6% of adolescents were depressed before COVID-19, of which 1.9% were severely depressed. After COVID-19, 26.3% of adolescents were prone to depression, of which 1.4% were severely depressed. 24.4% of adolescents had anxiety before COVID-19, with severe anxiety accounting for 1.6%. After COVID-19, 23.5% of adolescents were prone to anxiety, of which 1.7% had severe anxiety.
CONCLUSION
Chinese adolescents in different grades exhibited different psychological characteristics, and their levels of anxiety and depression were improved after the COVID-19 pandemic. Changes in educational management practices since the COVID-19 pandemic may be worth learning from and optimizing in long-term educational planning.
Core Tip: Our investigation found that the Chinese adolescents have different psychological characteristics at different grades, and their levels of anxiety and depression have improved since the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The partial educational management practices that have changed since the COVID-19 pandemic may be worth learning from and optimizing long-term educational planning.
