Abstract
Background:
An outbreak of global pandemic COVID-19 profoundly affects life around the globe. Prolonged isolation, contact restriction and economic shutdown impose a deeply change to the psychosocial environment. These indicate a tendency to threaten the mental health of adolescents’ significantly. Detecting adolescents’ psychosocial risk during Pandemic COVID-19, particularly when they stay at home, may be helpful to better understand their mental health well- being.
Aims:
The current study aimed to explore psychosocial risk factors associated with mental health of adolescents’ in the midst of the outbreak.
Method:
This research uses a qualitative approach which focuses on focus group discussions interviews. This research took 6 weeks via online communication platform involving (n = 15) adolescents from the Low Income Household.
Result:
The participants adolescents’ psychosocial risk experience during amidst of Outbreak Covid-19 Pandemic are composed of (1) self- conflict (develop negative thought at home, unplanned of daily activities, changing sleep pattern and irregular wake up time and massively use internet) (2) Family Members (Conflict between parent and miscommunication between siblings) (3) School (Piling up on homework, Inadequate guidance for homework and Inability to comprehend online learning). These psychosocial risk factors have caused disruption to daily life adolescents’ during outbreaks and almost inevitably trigger a spike in mental health issues.
Conclusion:
Overall of study emphasized that psychosocial risks are important factors that can be addressed in order to reduce mental health problem.
In January 2020, World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed a novel coronavirus (COVID-19) as an event of Public Health Emergency of International Concern. COVID-19 infection spreads around the globe and causes fatality to human. In March 2020, WHO declared COVID-19 as a pandemic that urges intervention to avert further infection from afflicting human lives. This crisis pushes numerous countries to execute Lock Down or Movement Control Order (MCO) that has been impairing economy, tourism, trade and education sectors. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) estimated that around 190 countries have ordered schools to close and it affects 1.52 billion of children and youths, that is about half of the global students population (UNESCO, 2020).
Closing of schools leads adolescents to stay at home and self-isolate for a long time which influence their behaviour, mental and emotional well-being. Failure to adapt to monotonous daily routine and maximize learning and social activities at home can create problems pertaining to their psychosocial aspects (Brooks et al., 2020; Cao et al., 2020). Moreover, the limited space that is not proportionate to the number of family members at home stirs up conflicts to adolescents and their families. Past research indicated that a continuous isolation leads to mental health distress such as anxiety, depression, post traumatic disorder (PTSD), withdrawal behaviours and disappointment to certain individuals (Banerjee et al., 2020; Torales et al., 2020). In fact, these stressors affect psychosocial well-being particularly social interaction between family members, loneliness and domestic violence (Dubey et al., 2020; Fontanesi et al., 2020). Therefore, the social role that determines mental health well-being among adolescents deserves urgent attention especially amidst this pandemic crisis at hand. This urgency justifies this study that is conducted on adolescents to explore their psychosocial well-being issues that they faced at home throughout the MCO.
This initial report explored Malaysian adolescents’ psychosocial risk factors associated with mental health of adolescents amidst COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. A total of 15 young adolescents – who stayed at home during MCO due to the closing down of schools – were gathered in a focus group discussion. Table 1 summarizes three main themes highlighted by the participants as their psychosocial concerns during MCO.
Participants’ psychosocial risk factors concerns amidst the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak.
The enforcement of MCO impacted adolescents’ stress level because they were required to be at home during MCO. It restricted their movements and daily routine as well as the extra effort put forward to optimize space at home for doing activities. This problem could cause adolescents to feel deprived and dissatisfied to express their emotions in activities they liked. Adolescents reported that closing of schools impacted their time management because they no longer had a systematic schedule. Incompetency to plan a well-adapted daily schedule affected their activities and behaviour while staying at home because of their repetitive routine. This situation raised self-conflicts because they felt dull and did not feel energetic.
Adolescents also disclosed that they had irregular sleeping pattern since they woke up late in the morning and sleep late at night. This change in sleeping schedule led them to sleep disruptions and poor sleep quality. Besides, adolescents also admitted that they occupied their hours by surfing the Internet in their bedroom. They engrossed in screen time activities such as watching movies and documentaries, seeking information based on their interest and engaging with social media. However, unlimited internet usage influenced them to surf on the dark side of the Internet that is pornography sites or portals. Hence, disrupted sleeping pattern and massive daily use of internet could lead to mental fatigue.
Adolescents who have conflicts with family members can affect their psychosocial during pandemic. Stressors faced by parents in managing family, making ends meet and dealing with children attitudes and behaviours increase the tendency for conflicts to happen between parents and adolescents. Parents’ incapacity to handle adolescents at home leads to communication gap and relationship tension between them. Results found that there were adolescents who rebelled because parents did not understand their personal need and neglected them while they were at home. Furthermore, adolescents also revealed that they had siblings conflicts that developed into further disputes, fights and dissatisfied to one another. These issues tapped on psychosocial problems among adolescents’ that cause mental distress. Main reasons of the conflicts began with disagreement on claiming the bedroom as a personal space, limited capacity for the Internet, limited time to use computer due to other siblings waiting in line.
They also stated that problems pertaining to schools caused conflicts during the MCO. In other words, piling up homework led to academic pressure to finish up their tasks. This is because most of the assigned homework required independent learning to complete it. The issue appeared when adolescents have limited internet access to study materials and to join in online learning set up by their teachers. Issues also raised when they did not fully comprehend the content of online learning session and tasks assigned which caused their inability to complete the tasks satisfactorily. Academic conflicts made adolescents raised questions and disaffection regarding their learning process.
In conclusion, psychosocial risk factors are important to the psychologists and counsellors to devise psychosocial health preparedness strategies for adolescents’, parents’ and teachers’ reference in coping psychosocial risk at home and reducing mental health problem. The fundamental step to help adolescents is by empowering the self and social management skills for them to better adapt to the social environment. Additionally, parents shall be exposed on ways to enhance their parental, communication, and daily activities planning skills to encourage a positive psychosocial well-being as well as positive mental health at home.
