Youth stress levels lower at start of COVID-19 pandemic than before
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Research conducted in Korea found that the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic lessened severe emotional response in young people compared with pre-pandemic levels, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open.
“In Korea, suicide has been reported to be the leading cause of death among adolescents,” So Young Kim, MD, PhD, of the department of otorhinolaryngology–head & neck surgery at CHA Bundang Medical Center in Korea, and colleagues wrote. “The risk factors for suicide attempts are multifactorial and include individual psychologic factors, drug abuse and sleep problems.”
“Therefore, both personal and socioenvironmental factors, such as the occurrence of the COVID-19 pandemic, may have an effect on suicide attempts in adolescents,” they added.
Researchers sought to find relevant associations between the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, greater number and intensity of self-reported stress and increased suicide-related behaviors in young persons. The cross-sectional study utilized data drawn from the Korea Youth Risk Behavior Web-based Survey, conducted in 2019 and 2020, featuring 92,659 young men and women aged 12 to 18 years.
They compared odds ratios regarding different facets of mental state, including stress level, sadness, despair, suicidal thoughts, planning, ideation or attempted suicide, among 2020 participants and 2019 participants via multiple logistic regression analysis with complex sampling using weighted values.
Results showed that high stress levels, as well as several stress-related behaviors, were less prevalent in the 2020 group than in the 2019 group. According to the data, 27.5% of 2019 participants and only 23.9% of 2020 participants experienced sadness or despair. While 12.6% of 2019 participants reported suicidal thoughts, just 10.1% of the 2020 participants reported the same. Regarding suicide planning and suicide attempts, 3.5% of the 2019 cohort and 3.1% of the 2020 cohort logged instances of the former, while 2.6% of the 2019 participants and 1.7% of the 2020 participants reported a history of the latter.
“During the early COVID-19 pandemic period, the odds of severe stress, sadness or despair, and suicidality were lower than those during the pre-COVID-19 period in Korean youths,” Kim and colleagues wrote. “The lower odds of severe stress, sadness or despair, and suicidality during the COVID-19 pandemic period were consistent in all subgroups by sex, income and scholastic performance.
“Multiple factors may have induced lower severe stress and suicidality during the COVID-19 pandemic period in youths,” they added. “Social distancing policies and school closures to restrain the spread of COVID-19 may have decreased the severe stress from social activities and academic burdens in youths."