Well-Being Perception During COVID-19 Pandemic in Healthy Adolescents: Evidence From the Avatar Study

Abstract

\n Background\n\nCOVID-19 pandemic provided an extraordinary and naturalistic context to observe young people’s psychosocial profile and to study how a condition of environmental deprivation and lack of direct social contact, affect the well-being and health status of adolescents. The current study explored whether the COVID-19 outbreak changes, in the short term, the acute well-being perception in adolescents, as measured by a Personalised Well-being Index (PWBI) and the four components affecting health (i.e. lifestyle habits, social context, emotional status, mental skills), in a sample of early adolescent students.\nMethods\n\nData were collected in 1019 adolescents (boys 48.3%, mean age 12.53\u2009±\u20091.25), at the beginning of school year (Baseline Condition, BC) as part of the AVATAR project and during the Italian lockdown phase (LP) using online questionnaire.\nResults\n\nDuring COVID-19 quarantine, adolescents showed a lower PWBI (p\u2009=\u20090.000) as compared to the baseline conditions. Considering the four health-related well-being components, lifestyle habits (p\u2009=\u20090.000), social context (p\u2009=\u20090.000), and emotional status (p\u2009=\u20090.000), showed significantly lower values during lockdown phase than baseline ones. However, mental skills, in LP, displayed a significant increase as compared to pre-COVID conditions (p\u2009=\u20090.000).\nConclusions\n\nIn this study, we have provided data on the personalised well-being index and the different components affecting health in adolescents during the COVID-19 lockdown, showing a general decreased in well-being perception, expressed in the lifestyle habits, social, and emotional components, demonstrating detrimental effects in the first phase of quarantine on adolescents’psychosocial profile. Our result shed new light on adolescence as a crucial period of risk behaviour, especially when social support is lacking.