Mental and Emotional Disorders In Students During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Changes in learning methods during the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in increased stress in students which had a negative impact on their mental health. Stress causes physiological responses, negative psychological reactions, maladaptive behaviour, mental confusion and frustration. An overload of stress also stimulates other mental health problems including anxiety, hopelessness or powerlessness, depression and lack of self-esteem. This study aimed to determine the mental and emotional disorders in students during the COVID-19 pandemic. This was a cross-sectional study. 153 senior high school students in Malang Indonesia were selected by the random sampling technique to participate in the study. The variable of mental emotional disorder was measured with the PSC-17 questionnaire. Data were analyzed using SPSS. The result of this study indicated that during the COVID-19 pandemic, students in Indonesia experienced internalizing disorders (83.25%), externalizing disorders (2.61%) and attention disorders (21.57%). There were only 15.69% of respondents who showed no indication of a disorder. The results showed that adolescents had mental health struggles, especially internalizing disorder symptoms such as anxiety, sadness, gloom, hopelessness and inferiority.
 Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic, student, mental emotional disorder