Analysis Of Potential Changes In Anxiety And Depression Symptoms Among High School Students During The COVID-19 Pandemic: The Impact Of Subjective Well-being And Psychological Resilienc

Anxiety and depression in high school can significantly impact an individual’s life and future.Focus on anxiety and depression among students in the context of COVID-19 prevention and control.This study aims to understand the development characteristics of anxiety and depression among high school students in the context of COVID-19 prevention and control and investigate and verify the variables that may affect anxiety and depression,such as gender,subjective well-being,mental resilience and the perception of COVID-19 risk.The students of a senior secondary school in Qufu City,Shandong Province were used as the study population,and data were collected twice in March 2022 and September 2022,in which a total of 913 students participated in both surveys,of which 397(43%)were male students and 516(57%)were female students,and this group was used for all subsequent studies.The Generalised Anxiety Disorder Scale,the Patient Health Questionnaire,the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire,the Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale and the Perception of Danger to the Covid-19 questionnaire were used to measure anxiety problems,depression problems,subjective well-being,psychological resilience and perception of danger to the Covid-19 in the study participants respectively;descriptive statistics,t-tests and Pearson correlation analysis were used to compare the differences between different demographic variables The latent profile analysis was used to explore the potential categories of individual anxiety and depression symptoms,and the developmental trajectory of individual anxiety and depression symptoms was explored through the latent transition analysis to compare the differences and characteristics of individuals in different latent classes over time.The results revealed that(1)there were four latent classes of anxiety-depressive symptoms among high school students,namely the normal group,the mild anxiety-depressive group,the moderate anxiety-depressive group and the severe anxiety-depressive group;(2)individuals in the normal group had the highest probability of remaining stable in their original latent class during the change from T1 time point to T2 time point,followed by the moderate anxiety-depressive group and the mild anxiety-depressive group,and the severe anxiety-depressive symptoms group had the lowest probability of remaining stable.(3)Gender,subjective well-being,psychological resilience and perceived risk of Covid-19 all had significant effects on the attribution of individuals to different potential categories;(4)In addition to gender,there were also significant effects of subjective well-being,psychological resilience and perceived risk of Covid-19 on the stability and shift between potential categories of anxiety-depressive symptoms at time points T1 and T2.Finally,this study draws the following conclusions:(1)According to the anxiety and depression symptoms of high school students,they can be divided into four latent classes: normal group,mild anxiety-depression group,moderate anxiety-depression group,and severe anxiety-depression group.(2)Over time,individuals in the normal group were more stable,while those in the severe anxiety-depression group were more likely to transition to other groups;(3)The overall level of anxiety and depression in girls is higher than that in boys,but boys are more likely to have serious anxiety and depression symptoms;(4)The stability and transformation of latent classes of anxiety and depression among high school students can be affected by subjective well-being,mental resilience and the perceived risk of COVID-19.The higher of subjective well-being and mental resilience,the more likely an individual is to belong to the class with lower anxiety and depression symptoms,or transition to the class with lower anxiety and depression symptoms.The higher the COVID-19 risk perception,the more likely individuals were to belong to the category with higher anxiety and depression symptoms,or were more likely to transition to the category with higher anxiety and depression symptoms.