Abstract
Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly impacted people's life across the globe. In a public health crisis, rural adolescents are more prone to mental health problems. The current study aimed to investigate the prevalence of depressive symptoms among Chinese rural adolescents during the COVID-19 outbreak, and examine the association between perceived social support and depressive symptoms and its underlying mechanisms.Method: Perceived Social Support Scale, UCLA Loneliness Scale, Patient Health Questionnaire-9 were administrated to 826 rural adolescents from Anhui Province, China, amid the COVID-19 crisis. Mackinnon's four-step procedure was employed to examine the mediating effect, while Hayes PROCESS macro was utilized to test the moderated mediation model.Results: The results showed the rate of depressive symptoms among rural adolescents in China was 77.6% during the outbreak of COVID-19. Female left-behind students and non-left-behind students from disrupted families experienced more depressive symptoms (all P < 0.05). Loneliness mediated the association between perceive social support and depressive symptoms and the indirect effect was stronger in left-behind adolescents in comparison to non-left-behind adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic.Conclusion: Depressive symptoms are extremely prevalent among Chinese rural adolescents during the COVID-19 outbreak, and perceived social support plays a protective role against depressive symptoms. Chinese rural adolescents, especially left-behind students, could benefit from the interventions aimed at enhancing the perceived social support and reducing loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Highlights
The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly impacted people’s life across the globe
Public health measures to curb the spread of COVID-19 have exerted adverse impacts on the mental health, especially for adolescents
The results showed that perceived social support and all three subscales were all significantly and negatively correlated with loneliness and depression
Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly impacted people’s life across the globe. In a public health crisis, rural adolescents are more prone to mental health problems. The current study aimed to investigate the prevalence of depressive symptoms among Chinese rural adolescents during the COVID-19 outbreak, and examine the association between perceived social support and depressive symptoms and its underlying mechanisms. The outbreak of COVID-19 has brought great challenges for both physical and mental healthcare around the world and disrupted daily life for everyone [1]. COVID-related stressors, such as enhanced social isolation, decreased prosocial activities, reduced access to mental health services, increased concerns over health, intensified family conflict, were found to be related to higher levels of psychological problems [4]. Public health measures to curb the spread of COVID-19 have exerted adverse impacts on the mental health, especially for adolescents. Adolescents are more likely to experience intense emotions with greater frequency and fluctuation [6]
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