Experienced Stress Among Adults, Adolescents, and LGBQ Students in Time of Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The covid-19 pandemic has affected the lives of every Filipino adolescent, adults, and LGBQ students. Knowledge of these affecting factors is limited. The study's primary purpose was to determine the level of stress among adolescents and adult students. Nine-hundred thirty (930) students participated in the study (First-year College and Junior High School students, n=724; Graduate Students, n=206). Result showed that among adult students which were grouped into gender: 30.67% male (n=23), 65.33% female (n=49), and 4% LGBQ (n=3) experienced a high level of Covid-19 stress-related symptoms, while 27.03% male (n=10), 67.57% female (n=25), and 5.41% LGBQ (n=2) scored lower level of stress. Likewise, among adolescent students, 32.32% male (n=83), 66.79% female (n=177), and 1.89% LGBQ (n=5) experienced high level of stress while 43.65% male (n=50), 52.64% (n=60), and 3.51% LGBQ (n=4) reported to have low stress level. Moreover, male adolescents and female adults were found to have higher Covid-19 stress-related symptoms. Consequently, k-means scores showed that 36.60% of adolescent students scored high (mean scores of 2.78-4.00) while 15.7% scored low (mean scores of .00-1.69). Meanwhile, among adult students, 36.4% scored a higher level of stress (mean scores of 2.81-4), and 45.6% reported having a lower level of stress (mean scores of .03-1.81). Also, adolescent students are prone to experience higher stress levels than adult students living in the Philippine region. Adult students may have established better coping mechanisms compared to adolescents. The researchers discussed the importance of designing and providing an evidence-based psychological intervention to address the participants' needs. A qualitative study may also be conducted to unveil the phenomenon of stress-related experiences among adults, adolescents, and LGBQ students to better explain the current study results