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An Assessment of Austrian School Students’ Mental Health and Their Wish for Support: A Mixed Methods Approach

The mental health of school students has been severely impacted by the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. The present study used a mixed methods approach to assess students’ mental health and examine their wishes for support to improve their psychological well-being. We further investigated gender...

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Autores principales: Haider, Katja, Humer, Elke, Weber, Magdalena, Pieh, Christoph, Ghorab, Tiam, Dale, Rachel, Dinhof, Carina, Gächter, Afsaneh, Probst, Thomas, Jesser, Andrea
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10049003/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36981657
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20064749
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author Haider, Katja
Humer, Elke
Weber, Magdalena
Pieh, Christoph
Ghorab, Tiam
Dale, Rachel
Dinhof, Carina
Gächter, Afsaneh
Probst, Thomas
Jesser, Andrea
author_facet Haider, Katja
Humer, Elke
Weber, Magdalena
Pieh, Christoph
Ghorab, Tiam
Dale, Rachel
Dinhof, Carina
Gächter, Afsaneh
Probst, Thomas
Jesser, Andrea
author_sort Haider, Katja
collection PubMed
description The mental health of school students has been severely impacted by the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. The present study used a mixed methods approach to assess students’ mental health and examine their wishes for support to improve their psychological well-being. We further investigated gender and age group differences in the amount of clinically relevant mental health problems and the roles that mental health and gender had on desired support. Between April and May 2022, a total of 616 Austrian students aged between 14 and 20 participated in a cross-sectional online survey (77.4% female; 19.8% male; 2.8% non-binary) assessing wishes for support regarding mental well-being and mental health indicators (depression: PHQ-9; anxiety: GAD-7; insomnia: ISI; stress: PSS-10; eating disorders: SCOFF; alcohol abuse: CAGE). A wish for support was expressed by 46.6% of the students. Qualitative content analysis revealed that the two most important categories of desired support types were “professional help” and “someone to talk to”. The group of students with a wish for support in general significantly more often showed clinically relevant depression, anxiety, insomnia, eating disorders, or high stress symptoms. Students that wished for professional help significantly more often exceeded the cut-off for clinically relevant depression, anxiety, and high stress. Those who wished for someone to talk to significantly more often exceeded the cut-off for clinically relevant eating disorders. The results indicate a great need for support for young people’s mental health problems and that this need is even more urgent for students.
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spelling pubmed-100490032023-03-29 An Assessment of Austrian School Students’ Mental Health and Their Wish for Support: A Mixed Methods Approach Haider, Katja Humer, Elke Weber, Magdalena Pieh, Christoph Ghorab, Tiam Dale, Rachel Dinhof, Carina Gächter, Afsaneh Probst, Thomas Jesser, Andrea Int J Environ Res Public Health Article The mental health of school students has been severely impacted by the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. The present study used a mixed methods approach to assess students’ mental health and examine their wishes for support to improve their psychological well-being. We further investigated gender and age group differences in the amount of clinically relevant mental health problems and the roles that mental health and gender had on desired support. Between April and May 2022, a total of 616 Austrian students aged between 14 and 20 participated in a cross-sectional online survey (77.4% female; 19.8% male; 2.8% non-binary) assessing wishes for support regarding mental well-being and mental health indicators (depression: PHQ-9; anxiety: GAD-7; insomnia: ISI; stress: PSS-10; eating disorders: SCOFF; alcohol abuse: CAGE). A wish for support was expressed by 46.6% of the students. Qualitative content analysis revealed that the two most important categories of desired support types were “professional help” and “someone to talk to”. The group of students with a wish for support in general significantly more often showed clinically relevant depression, anxiety, insomnia, eating disorders, or high stress symptoms. Students that wished for professional help significantly more often exceeded the cut-off for clinically relevant depression, anxiety, and high stress. Those who wished for someone to talk to significantly more often exceeded the cut-off for clinically relevant eating disorders. The results indicate a great need for support for young people’s mental health problems and that this need is even more urgent for students. MDPI 2023-03-08 /pmc/articles/PMC10049003/ /pubmed/36981657 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20064749 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Haider, Katja
Humer, Elke
Weber, Magdalena
Pieh, Christoph
Ghorab, Tiam
Dale, Rachel
Dinhof, Carina
Gächter, Afsaneh
Probst, Thomas
Jesser, Andrea
An Assessment of Austrian School Students’ Mental Health and Their Wish for Support: A Mixed Methods Approach
title An Assessment of Austrian School Students’ Mental Health and Their Wish for Support: A Mixed Methods Approach
title_full An Assessment of Austrian School Students’ Mental Health and Their Wish for Support: A Mixed Methods Approach
title_fullStr An Assessment of Austrian School Students’ Mental Health and Their Wish for Support: A Mixed Methods Approach
title_full_unstemmed An Assessment of Austrian School Students’ Mental Health and Their Wish for Support: A Mixed Methods Approach
title_short An Assessment of Austrian School Students’ Mental Health and Their Wish for Support: A Mixed Methods Approach
title_sort assessment of austrian school students’ mental health and their wish for support: a mixed methods approach
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10049003/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36981657
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20064749
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