School closures during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic have led to a massive deterioration in adolescent mental health. This is the result of a study published on Friday by economists at the University of Konstanz in cooperation with the University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE). The team explicitly examined the effect of school closures on the mental health of 11 to 17 year olds. More than 1000 young people were surveyed for this.
According to Christina Felfe from the University of Konstanz, 11- to 17-year-olds were on average as bad off during the first wave of the pandemic as the 15 percent of young people who were the worst off before the pandemic. According to the study, boys were more affected than girls. The 11 to 14 year olds suffered more from the school closures than 15 to 17 year olds. Accordingly, young people in households with little living space also suffered greatly.
“Our goal was to investigate what the school closures did in this very sensitive phase of human life,” said Felfe. At this age, social ties and contact with teachers, classmates and other people are crucial for healthy development. Ulrike Ravens-Siebere from the UKE added: “We must now ensure that schools are strengthened and support them in order to make children and young people more resilient to future crises.”
For the investigation, the team used data from the UKE’s Copsy study (Corona and Psyche), among other things. It examined the mental health and quality of life of children and adolescents during the pandemic. The group placed this data in the context of school closures in the 16 federal states. Since the strategies of the federal states differed when it came to school closures, the study was able, among other things, to shed light on the effects of the different durations of closures. Accordingly, the quality of life of the young people decreased with every additional week that the schools were closed. At the same time, the psychological stress has increased.
In terms of content, the researchers supplemented information on stress for young people by evaluating calls to the “number against grief”. According to this, young people mainly had to struggle with family problems during the school closures.