Recovery Trajectories of Mental Health Symptoms Among Chinese Adolescents Following the End of COVID-19
ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Mental Health
Volume 12 – 2024 |
doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1396911
Provisionally accepted
- 1
South China Normal University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China - 2
Hunan Normal University, Changsha, Hunan Province, China - 3
Independent researcher, Guangzhou, China
The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.
Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on global mental health, particularly among adolescents. However, little is known about how mental health symptoms recover after the pandemic subsides. This study aims to examine the recovery trajectories of ten mental health problems and suicidal ideation among Chinese adolescents post-pandemic, with a focus on identifying factors that influence different recovery patterns.
Methods: A total of 2,534 adolescents participated in a three-wave survey, conducted in June 2022, November 2022, and March 2023, using the Mental Health Scale for Chinese Middle School Students. A novel index was developed to account for both the number and severity of mental health risk factors, allowing for the classification of psychological symptoms into three subgroups: no, moderate, and severe. Polynomial regression models were applied to determine the acceleration inflection point, and multivariate logistic regressions identified predictors of trajectory membership.
Results: Significant declines in psychological symptoms were observed. Seven trajectory patterns were identified: resistance (37.85%), recovery (22.61%), chronic-dysfunction (12.08%), aftermath-deterioration (10.81%), stress-responsiveness (8.21%), vulnerability (5.76%), and remitting (2.68%). Being female, senior high school students, and the oldest child in the family hindered mental health recovery, whereas parenting styles of companionship, empathetic support, promise fulfillment, and behavior intervention served as protective factors.
Conclusions: This study is one of the first to reveal the post-pandemic mental health recovery trajectories of Chinese adolescents, highlighting the importance of considering both the number and severity of cumulative mental health problems. The findings offer valuable insights into suicide prevention and the development of targeted interventions to support youth mental health recovery.
Keywords:
Recovery trajectory, COVID-19, cumulative mental health risk, Suicidal Ideation, severity
Received:
06 Mar 2024;
Accepted:
15 Nov 2024.
Copyright:
© 2024 Peng, He, Guo, Diao, Chen, Deng, Lei and Gao. This is an
open-access article distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted,
provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the
original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted
academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which
does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Mo Lei, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, Guangdong, China
Ruixiang Gao, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, Guangdong, China
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