Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, University Hospital of Würzburg, 97080 Würzburg, Germany.
German Center of Prevention Research in Mental Health, 97080 Wuerzburg, Germany.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 Jan 30;20(3):2493. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20032493.
Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in December 2019 and the associated restrictions, mental health in children and adolescents has been increasingly discussed in the media. Negative impacts of the pandemic, including a sharp increase in psychopathology and, consequently, reduced quality of life, appear to have particularly affected children and young people, who may be especially vulnerable to the adverse effects of isolation. Nevertheless, many children and adolescents have managed to cope well with the restrictions, without deterioration of their mental health. The present study therefore explored the links between COVID-19 infection (in oneself or a family member, as well as the death of a family member due to the virus), protective factors such as self-efficacy, resilience, self-esteem, and health-related quality of life, and measures of psychopathology such as depression scores, internalizing/externalizing problems, emotion dysregulation, and victimization. For this purpose, we examined data from 2129 adolescents (mean age = 12.31, SD = 0.67; 51% male; 6% born outside of Germany) using a structural equation model. We found medium to high loadings of the manifest variables with the latent variables (COVID-19, protective factors, and psychopathology). Protective factors showed a significant negative correlation with psychopathology. However, COVID-19 had a weak connection with psychopathology in our sample. External pandemic-related factors (e.g., restrictions) and their interaction with existing psychopathology or individual protective factors appear to have a greater influence on young people's mental health than the impact of the virus per se. Sociopolitical efforts should be undertaken to foster prevention and promote individual resilience, especially in adolescence.
自 2019 年 12 月 COVID-19 大流行爆发以及随之而来的限制措施以来，儿童和青少年的心理健康在媒体中越来越受到关注。大流行的负面影响，包括精神病理学的急剧增加，以及随之而来的生活质量下降，似乎尤其影响到儿童和青少年，他们可能特别容易受到隔离的不利影响。然而，许多儿童和青少年成功地应对了这些限制，其心理健康没有恶化。因此，本研究探讨了 COVID-19 感染（自身或家庭成员感染，以及因病毒而导致家庭成员死亡）、自我效能感、韧性、自尊和健康相关生活质量等保护因素，以及抑郁评分、内化/外化问题、情绪调节障碍和受害等精神病理学指标之间的联系。为此，我们使用结构方程模型分析了 2129 名青少年（平均年龄=12.31，标准差=0.67；51%为男性；6%出生在德国以外）的数据。我们发现，显变量与潜变量（COVID-19、保护因素和精神病理学）之间存在中等至高度的负荷。保护因素与精神病理学呈显著负相关。然而，在我们的样本中，COVID-19 与精神病理学的联系较弱。外部大流行相关因素（例如限制）及其与现有精神病理学或个体保护因素的相互作用，似乎对年轻人的心理健康产生的影响比病毒本身更大。应该进行社会政治努力，以促进预防和提高个体韧性，尤其是在青春期。
