Students’ risk for anxiety decreased during COVID-19 lockdowns, UK survey finds
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A survey of 1,047 students aged 13 to 14 years from 17 schools in the United Kingdom showed that their risk for anxiety decreased during lockdowns for the COVID-19 pandemic compared with the period before the pandemic.
According to a report of the findings by Emily Widnall, MSc, a senior research associate at the University of Bristol, and colleagues, the rate of anxiety fell from 54% to 45% in teen girls and 26% to 18% in teen boys while in lockdown.
The survey also showed that students’ “connectedness” to school increased overall during the lockdown period.
“We need to understand more about what leads to better and worse school connectedness including why young people reported feeling more connected to schools during lockdown,” Widnall told Healio. “It will be important to carry out qualitative work on this to more directly explore young people’s experiences both during lockdown and on return to school, as well as the views of school staff and parents. It would be really interesting, for example, to see what impact the new measures put in place may have on school connectedness with things such as social distancing and possible year group bubbles being introduced.”
Based on the hospital anxiety and depression scale, the mean anxiety scores for children who were at risk for anxiety dropped from 12.8 before the pandemic to 10.1 during the pandemic.
“We saw high rates of those at risk of anxiety in this age group, but we may also see a rise in anxiety to unusually high levels as young people return after the long break,” Widnall said. “Young people are likely to have adapted to their new routines and will be out of habit; a return to school will therefore be a huge change for them. There may also be even more pressure of academic ‘catch up,’ as well as new rules to familiarize themselves with in relation to COVID-19.”
According to the survey, there was a small increase in the proportion of girls at risk for depression, from 31% to 34%, and a small decrease from 21% to 19% among boys.
Students reporting a health problem or a disability, or who identified as part of the LGBTQ+ community, had higher scores for anxiety and depression.
“More understanding is needed on how to better support these more vulnerable groups,” Widnall said.
According to the report, overall reductions in anxiety may be due to the removal of stressors within the school environment, such as academic pressure, challenges of peer relationships and bullying. As schools reopen, the authors said it is important to observe how this may impact students’ mental health.
“We are yet to understand the longer term impacts that missing in-person learning may have on young people, both in terms of their mental health and well-being and educational outcomes,” Widnall said. “It will be important to carefully monitor how young people are doing on return to school, particularly as school environments are going to look very different in September.”
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NIHR. Young people’s mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. https://sphr.nihr.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Young-Peoples-Mental-Health-during-the-COVID-19-Pandemic-Report-Final.pdf. Accessed August 31, 2020.
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