Resilience and coping behaviour among adolescents in a high-income city-state during the COVID-19 pandemic

The study aimed to determine the resilience of multi-ethnic, multi-cultural adolescent students in cosmopolitan Singapore, their coping abilities, and the impact on their social and physical activities during the COVID-19 pandemic and its association with their resilience. A total of 582 adolescents in post-secondary education institutes completed an online survey from June to November 2021. The survey assessed their sociodemographic status, resilience level using the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS) and Hardy-Gill Resilience Scale (HGRS), the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their daily activities, life settings, social life, social interactions, and coping ability in these aspects of life. Poor ability to cope with school life (adjusted beta = − 0.163, 95% CI − 1.928 to 0.639, p < 0.001), staying home (adjusted beta = − 0.108, 95% CI = − 1.611 to − 0.126, p = 0.022), sports (adjusted beta = − 0.116, 95% CI − 1.691 to − 0.197, p = 0.013) and friends (adjusted beta = − 0.143, 95% CI − 1.904 to − 0.363, p = 0.004) were associated with statistically significant low resilience level measured with HGRS. About half and a third of the participants reported normal and low resilience, respectively, based on BRS (59.6%/32.7%) and HGRS (49.0%/29.0%) scores. Adolescents of Chinese ethnicity and low socioeconomic status had comparatively lower resilience scores. Approximately half of the adolescents in this study had normal resilience despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Adolescents with lower resilience tended to have lower coping abilities. The study did not compare changes in the social life and coping behaviour of the adolescents due to COVID-19, as data on these aspects prior to the pandemic was unavailable.