The COVID-19 pandemic has posed unprecedented stress to young people. Despite recent speculative suggestions of poorer mental health in young people in India since the start of the pandemic, there have been no systematic efforts to measure these. Here we report on the content of worries of Indian adolescents and identify groups of young people who may be particularly vulnerable to negative emotions along with reporting on the impact of coronavirus on their lives. Three-hundred-and-ten young people from North India (51% male, 12–18 years) reported on their personal experiences of being infected by the coronavirus, the impact of the pandemic and its' restrictions across life domains, their top worries, social restrictions, and levels of negative affect and anhedonia. Findings showed that most participants had no personal experience (97.41%) or knew anyone (82.58%) with COVID-19, yet endorsed moderate-to-severe impact of COVID-19 on their academics, social life, and work. These impacts in turn associated with negative affect. Participants' top worries focused on academic attainments, social and recreational activities, and physical health. More females than males worried about academic attainment and physical health while more males worried about social and recreational activities. Thus, Indian adolescents report significant impact of the pandemic on various aspects of their life and are particularly worried about academic attainments, social and recreational activities and physical health. These findings call for a need to ensure provisions and access to digital education and medical care.
Background
Difficulties with prospective mental images are associated with adolescent depression. Current treatments mainly focus on verbal techniques to reduce negative affect (e.g. low mood) rather than enhancing positive affect, despite anhedonia being present in adolescents. We investigated the concurrent relationships between the vividness of negative and positive prospective mental imagery and negative affect and positive affect; and examined whether negative and positive prospective mental imagery moderated the impact of recent stress (COVID-19-linked stress) on negative and positive affect.
Methods
2602 young people (12–25 years) completed the Prospective Imagery Task and self-reported on symptoms of negative affect, anhedonia and COVID-19 linked stress.
Results
Elevated vividness of negative future mental imagery and reduced vividness of positive future mental imagery were associated with increased negative affect, whereas only reduced vividness of positive future imagery was associated with increased symptoms of anhedonia. Elevated vividness of negative future images amplified the association between COVID-19 linked stress and negative affect, while elevated vividness of positive future images attenuated the association between COVID-19 linked stress and anhedonia.
Conclusions
Future mental imagery may be differentially associated with negative and positive affect, but this needs to be replicated in clinical populations to support novel adolescent psychological treatments.
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to pose unprecedented threat globally. Adolescents and youth may be especially susceptible to the long-term impact of these stressors, thus intervening early is an important priority. However, it is also crucial to understand how young people maintain psychological well-being in the face of adversity, particularly given that many nations are experiencing further waves of the pandemic. The understanding of such resilient outcomes could inform the development of programs to encourage positive mental health.We explored adolescents' resilience to the COVID-19 pandemic stress by examining core aspects of well-being across countries using network analysis. Using the short Warwick–Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale, cross-sectional data was collected online from adolescents from India (
N
= 310; Males = 159, Females = 151, aged 12–18), Israel (
N
= 306; Males = 154, Females = 152, aged 12–18) and the United Kingdom (UK;
N
= 1666; Males = 598, Females = 1068, aged 12–25). Two highly similar network clusters were identified for UK and Israel, with three clusters emerging for India. UK and Israeli networks centred on “dealing with problems well” while Indian centred on “feeling useful”. As central items highlight aspects of well-being that influence or are influenced by other aspects, these findings may inform interventions to safeguard adolescent mental health during future phases of the pandemic.
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