Abstract
Purpose: many researchers have already established that the 2019 COVID-19 pandemic poses a threat to adolescent psychological health. Studies on the COVID-19 pandemic mainly focus on individual psychological consequences, such as anxiety, depression or stress. The presented study added a family context to psychological analyses of the COVID-19 pandemic in adolescence. We examined the mediational effects of closeness to parents and perceived pandemic-related threats to relationships between personality (emotional stability and agreeableness) and stress in adolescents. Methods: in total, 413 students from secondary schools in southern Poland completed questionnaires measuring stress, personality, closeness to parents and experiencing threats with COVID-19. Results: the results demonstrated that closeness with parents in conjunction with experiencing family-related threats and threats related to lifestyle changes were mediators between adolescent personality traits and the intensity of the stress experienced. Conclusions: closeness with parents and threats experienced with COVID-19 mediate relationships between personality traits (emotional stability and agreeableness) and the intensification of stress in adolescents.
Highlights
We focused on the importance of personality traits and closeness to their mother and father, as well as the types of risks and threats associated with COVID-19 experienced by adolescents that lead to the intensification of their stress
Summarizing the results, it can be stated that among the variables included in the theoretic model, the personality trait that played the most significant role in explaining the intensity of stress experienced by adolescents in the initial acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic was emotional stability
The results of our research have shown that closeness to parents can be an important factor, reducing both the strength of stress and potential threats related to the functioning of the family in difficult life circumstances, such as a pandemic [2]
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. The threat of COVID-19 infection has suddenly emerged in all societies. Health Organization recognized the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) as a public health emergency of international concern [1]. The relatively poor knowledge of the virus, the ease of infection, the speed with which it spreads and the threat to life made this situation a source of stress and even trauma for people of different ages [2,3]
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