A study found that the economic downturn caused by the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) pandemic had a negative impact on the mental health of middle and high school students in Korea. It was found that the types of negative emotions felt more frequently according to the gender of adolescents were different.
A research team led by Professor Jae-hyeok Lee of Keimyung University Daegu Dongsan Hospital published a paper containing these details in the Journal of the Korean Medical Association (JKMS), which was published on the 5th. According to the research team, this is the first study to examine the correlation between economic changes caused by COVID-19 and the mental health of Korean adolescents.
The research team conducted an online survey of 54,948 Korean middle and high school students from August to November 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 outbreak. We asked him about his experiences with negative emotions as the economic situation changed after the COVID-19 crisis.
As a result of the survey, 16,839 people, or about 30% of the respondents, felt that the economic situation at home had deteriorated due to the COVID-19 outbreak. In terms of gender, male and female students showed similar response rates with 8709 and 8130, respectively.
It was analyzed that adolescents who felt the economic situation deteriorated due to the COVID-19 crisis experienced a lot of stress compared to those who did not.
Among the male students who answered ‘the economic situation has greatly deteriorated since the COVID-19 crisis’, 40.9% of the male students answered ‘are under high stress’, while among the respondents who said ‘the economic situation has not changed significantly’, ‘there is a lot of stress The response rate of ‘no’ was 25.3%. In the case of high stress among female students, the number of respondents (56.7%) who said that the economic situation had deteriorated significantly compared to the respondents who felt that the economic situation had not deteriorated (35.3%).
As the economic status of families weakened after the COVID-19 outbreak, the negative emotions experienced by adolescents differed according to gender.
Among male students, the most negative emotions felt by the respondents were sadness and hopelessness (30.7%). It was followed by thoughts of suicide (8.1%), severe anxiety (2.3%), and loneliness (2.0%). The most negative emotion felt by female students was thoughts of suicide (26.2%). It was followed by sadness and hopelessness (25.5%), anxiety (11.5%), and loneliness (2.6%). The research team did not explain why the patterns of negative emotions felt by boys and girls were different.
Regardless of COVID-19, the rate of stress on a daily basis was higher for female students than for male students. 30% of female respondents answered “yes” to the experience of feeling lonely, while 17.9% of male students answered half of them. Regarding the experience of experiencing severe anxiety, female students (4.9%) showed more than double the response rate of male students (2.3%). Also, female students (30.7%) had a higher response rate than male students (20.1%). Also, female respondents (13.9%) had more thoughts of suicide than male students (8.1%).
The research team said, “There is a study showing that adolescents’ mental health deteriorated during the Greek financial crisis, and the suicide and delinquency rates also increased during the financial crisis in Korea. It needs to be taken into account in the future policy making process,” he said.