The mental health of high school students returning to in-class lessons

It is known that lockdown alters the mental health of children in general and adolescents in particular. Here, we surveyed the mental health of high school students returning to in-class lessons after the pandemic. We compared an "anxious-depressed" group with a "neither anxious nor depressed" group with regard to perceived self-efficacy.

Students from a high school in the Rhône-Alpes region of France participated in a mental health survey. After the students had been given a study information sheet and had agreed to participate, they filled out three paper-based questionnaires the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children (STAI-C), the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression (CES-D) self-questionnaire, and the Self-Efficacy Questionnaire for Children (SEQ-C) on an anonymous basis.

A total of 709 datasets were analyzed. The participants' mean±standard deviation age was 15.89±0.93. The group comprised 438 girls, 251 boys, and 20 participants who did not state their sex. Compared with the boys, the girls had significantly higher scores in the STAI-C and CES-D questionnaires. According to the SEQ-C, the boys felt significantly more effective than the girls overall and for social efficacy and emotional efficacy. In contrast, the boys and girls did not differ regarding the academic efficacy score. Our main findings were that 53% (n=379) of the high school students were reportedly free of anxiety or depression, 28% (n=198) showed symptoms of subclinical anxiety and depression, and 19% (n=131) showed symptoms of clinical anxiety or depression. We compared the "anxious-depressed" group with the "neither anxious nor depressed" group: the former group was mainly composed of girls, whereas there were nearly as many boys as girls in the latter group. After adjustment for sex, the overall self-efficacy and the academic, social and emotional efficacy scores were found to be lower in the "anxious-depressed" group. The sex difference was null for social efficacy, small for overall efficacy and academic efficacy, and moderate for emotional efficacy.

Overall, 47% of the study participants reported subclinical anxiety and/or a depression. It appears that anxiety and depression are linked to self-efficacy: the self-efficacy score was lower in the "anxious-depressed" group than in the "neither anxious nor depressed" group.