Does COVID19 impact on mental health and educational achievement in adolescents from upper secondary education?

During the past decades, we have witnessed an increase in stress and mental illness in adolescents.

This alarming situation is now exacerbated by psychosocial and economic consequences of COVID19 as revealed by research performed some few weeks/months after COVID19 outbreak. To date, there are very few published studies on Swedish adolescents. The situation with COVID19 continues to evolve and longer-term consequences of COVID19 are unknown.

This project focuses on adolescents who experienced distance learning during upper secondary education due to COVID19, and who will be graduated when survey of this project is about to start, i.e. 2.5-years after COVID19 outbreak.We will test the hypothesis that 1) COVID19-stressors increases depression & anxiety in 19-20-year olds in Sweden; 2) difficulties in distance learning have negative effects on educational achievement at the end of upper secondary education, contributing to the increased depression & anxiety; 3) pre-existing vulnerabilities, such as gender, family social economic status and mental health conditions, as well as coping strategies influence susceptibility to COVID19 stressors.Study subjects are adolescents participated in STARS (STudy of Adolescence Resilience and Stress), an established longitudinal cohort.

Pre-COVID19 data characterizing subjects are available, collected at both 13 & 15-years of age. A total of 928 adolescents are eligible for this study.

We collect data about depression, anxiety, self-perceived stress, psychosomatic symptoms, COVID19-stressors, peer & family relations, coping strategies, and educational achievement.

We will use pre-COVID19 data to study whether those with pre-existing health problems are vulnerable to COVID19-stressors and to what extent the use of coping strategies may modify the association.The project addresses an important knowledge gap regarding the longer-term mental health effects of large-scale disease outbreaks on Swedish adolescent.