As COVID-19 altered societal norms with less interactions, an Ohio State student found many people began experiencing adverse effects to their mental health — particularly adolescents. Photo Illustration By: Ris Twigg | Lantern File Photo
An Ohio State study found many people began experiencing adverse effects to their mental health due to the pandemic — including adolescents.
A June 7 study co-lead by Ohio State and Kenyon College researchers found that about one-third of young people reported an increase in anxiety levels and worsening moods from March 2020 to June 2020, Amy Ferketich, co-author of the study and an Ohio State professor of epidemiology, said.
Study participants — all of whom were 11- to 16-year-old males from another ongoing study cohort — were asked to self-report changes in their mood and anxiety levels, Ferketich said. Researchers measured their mental health before and during the pandemic, based on the participants’ perception.
About 31.6 percent of participants reported worsening moods and 32.3 percent reported increased anxiety during the pandemic, Ferketich said.
She also said social isolation could have played a role during lockdowns in declining mental health in adolescents.
According to the study, parents, schools and community organizations should work to create strategies that could reduce the impact of the pandemic on adolescents. Research suggests family activities may prevent declining mental health and enable conversations about any struggles in adolescents.
Eleanor Tetreault, lead author and recent graduate of Kenyon College, said preexisting mental health issues may have been worsened due to the pandemic.
“Any kind of mental health issue like that could potentially be worse off during a time of extreme stress like a pandemic or financial crisis — anything like that,” Tetreault said.
Participants who reported deteriorating relationships with friends and family experienced an increase in negative mental health symptoms, Ferketich said.
“It could be that decreased closeness to family and friends led to worse mood and increased anxiety or worse mood and increased anxiety led to decreased closeness to family and friends,” Ferketich said. “We really don’t know the direction because we looked at the associations at the same time.”
While declining mental health was an expected outcome of the study, some participants reported positive changes in their routine, Tetreault said. Some enjoyed spending more time with their family during quarantine, while others found virtual school beneficial to their mental health.
Tetreault said because COVID-19 is a new phenomenon, mental health during a pandemic has not previously been studied. Researchers are unable to look to previous global events for reasoning behind mental health decline during a pandemic.
“We can look to — we discuss a bit in the paper — other kinds of parallel events that maybe could give some insight into why mental health has worsened ” Tetreault said. “Any disruptions to your life routine, especially for adolescents, is a really big deal.”
