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

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic provided an extraordinary and naturalistic context to observe young people’s psychosocial profiles and to study how a condition of environmental deprivation and lack of direct social contact, affects the well-being and health status of adolescents. The study explored whether the COVID-19 outbreak changes, in the short term, the acute well-being perception in adolescents, as measured by a Personalized 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. Data from 10 schools were collected on 1019 adolescents (males 48.3%, mean age 12.53 ± 1.25 y). Measurements were obtained at two time points, in September/October 2019, (baseline condition, BC) as part of the “A new purpose for promotion and eVAluation of healTh and well-being Among healthy teenageRs” (AVATAR) project and during the Italian Lockdown Phase (mid–late April 2020, LP), with the same students using an online questionnaire. During COVID-19 quarantine, adolescents showed a lower PWBI (p < 0.001) as compared to the BC. Considering the four health-related well-being components, lifestyle habits (p < 0.001), social context (p < 0.001), and emotional status (p < 0.001), showed significantly lower values during LP than BC. However, mental skills, in LP, displayed a significant increase as compared to BC (p < 0.001). In this study, we have provided data on the personalized well-being index and the different components affecting health in adolescents during the COVID-19 lockdown, showing a general decrease in well-being perception, expressed in lifestyle habits, social, and emotional components, demonstrating detrimental effects in the first phase of quarantine on adolescents’ psychosocial profiles. Our results shed new light on adolescence as a crucial period of risk behavior, especially when social support is lacking.