Students Spoke! Perceived Mental Health of High School Students during the Pandemic in the United States

Background and Purpose:

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted school dynamics, the nature of familial and social relationships, and normative development paths for U.S. students. The mental health (MH) impact of these disruptions was determined by individual, familial, structural factors. It is critical to examine these risk factors as they may have negatively impacted high school students' perceived MH during the pandemic. This study examines factors that determined the perceived MH status of U.S. high school students in grades 9-12 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods:

A secondary, cross-sectional data analysis was conducted using the Adolescent Behaviors and Experiences Survey data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, gathered in 2021. The targeted population consisted of students who attended public, private, and Catholic schools. This study's covariates were age, race and ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation. The independent variables were parental job loss, suicidal ideation, and access to healthcare services (i.e., mental and physical). The dependent variable is perceived MH status. In this study, descriptives, frequencies, independent t-tests, one-way analysis of variances (ANOVA), and multivariate regression were conducted to understand better the perceived MH of students.

Results:

More than two-thirds (75.3%) of students between grades 9-12 reported some level of perceived poor MH status. A statistically significant difference was reported by gender, females (M= 3.31) reported worse MH than males (M= 2.48), [t (6969.543) = 28.855, p<.001]. Those who did not identify as heterosexual (M= 3.72) had worse perceived mental health than heterosexual participants (M= 2.72), [t (2931.895) = -31.264, p<.001]. The first ANOVA test that was conducted focused on age and perceived MH status. Results indicated a statistical significance between age groups on perceived MH status, [F (4,7193) = 2.457, p=0.044], with 14 years old and younger and 18 years old and older having the worst perceived MH. A second ANOVA for race/ethnicity was also conducted on perceived MH status, with results demonstrating a statistically significant difference between race/ethnicity groups on perceived MH status, [F (4,7141) = 29.566, p<0.001] with Indian/Alaskan Native/ Asian/ Native Hawaiian having worst perceived MH status. The covariates and independent variables were regressed on perceived MH through multivariate linear regression. The results were statistically significant, [F (14, 6375) =119.319; p<.000], which explained 20.8% (R2=.208) of the results. All covariate and independent variables were significant in the regression except for African American (AA) and suicide ideation.

Conclusions and implications:

This research study found several factors that influenced high school students' perceived MH status during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings indicate it is crucial to explore the perceived MH of students when a crisis arises, so school systems can respond accordingly by providing support. AA reported better mental health; however, historically the AA community has had lower rates of seeking support to address mental health due to the stigma and distrust for service providers. School social workers must ensure that they create preventative interventions at tier 1 and tier 2 levels of the multi-tiered systems that address MH and risk factors to support students when a crisis arises.