Purpose

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought dramatic changes to the daily lives of U.S. adolescents, including isolation from friends and extended family, transition to remote learning, potential illness and death of loved ones, and economic distress. This study’s purpose is to measure changes in adolescents’ perceived stress and mood early in the pandemic.

Methods

The present study drew from a racially and ethnically diverse sample of high school student participants in an ongoing intervention study in the Midwestern U.S., 128 of whom provided reports of their daily stress and mood both before (December 2017 to March 2020) and during (March–July 2020) the COVID-19 pandemic. We expected to see increases in perceived stress, declines in positive mood states, and increases in negative mood states, with larger impacts on individuals from households with lower parental education levels.

Results

Multilevel models revealed increases in perceived stress primarily for adolescents from low/moderate education families during the pandemic. Impacts on mood states also diverged by education: adolescents from low/moderate education households reported feeling more ashamed, caring, and excited than before the pandemic, changes that were not shared by their peers from high education households. Although changes in mood that arose with the onset of the pandemic became less pronounced over time, increased levels of home- and health-related stress stayed high for low/moderate education adolescents.

Conclusions

During the COVID-19 period, we observed disparate impacts on adolescents according to household education level, with more dramatic and negative changes in the emotional well-being of adolescents from low/moderate education households.

中文翻译：

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在 COVID-19 大流行早期，高父母教育可防止青少年压力和情绪的变化

目的

COVID-19 大流行给美国青少年的日常生活带来了巨大变化，包括与朋友和大家庭的隔离、向远程学习的过渡、亲人的潜在疾病和死亡以及经济困境。这项研究的目的是衡量大流行早期青少年感知压力和情绪的变化。

方法

本研究来自美国中西部正在进行的干预研究中的高中生参与者的种族和族裔多元化样本，其中 128 人提供了之前（2017 年 12 月至 2020 年 3 月）和期间（3 月）的日常压力和情绪报告。 – 2020 年 7 月）COVID-19 大流行。我们预计会看到感知压力增加，积极情绪状态下降，消极情绪状态增加，对来自父母教育水平较低家庭的个人影响更大。

结果

多层次模型显示，在大流行期间，主要来自低/中等教育家庭的青少年的感知压力增加。对情绪状态的影响也因教育而异：来自低/中等教育家庭的青少年报告说，与大流行之前相比，他们感到更羞耻、更关心和更兴奋，这些变化是来自高等教育家庭的同龄人所没有的。尽管随着时间的推移，随着大流行的发生而引起的情绪变化变得不那么明显，但对于低/中等教育青少年而言，与家庭和健康相关的压力水平仍然很高。

结论

在 COVID-19 期间，我们观察到根据家庭教育水平对青少年的不同影响，来自低/中等教育家庭的青少年的情绪健康发生了更为剧烈和负面的变化。