Memories of Pandemic Lockdowns Predict Declines in Young People’s Psychological Well-Being

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by MedicalXpress.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown measures to prevent contagion resulted in extensive disruptions in children’s and adolescents’ everyday lives. A new study in Child Development from the Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark; University of California, Riverside; and University of California, Davis in the United States has investigated personal memories (i.e., memories of episodes experienced in one’s own life) about the first lockdown in Denmark in spring 2020 among children and adolescents, and how this may have impacted their psychological well-being over the following year.

For context, in Denmark, the first school closure was mandated on March 11, 2020. School closure lasted until April 17, 2020, for younger students (preschool to 5th grade), and persisted until May 18, 2020, for older students (6th to 9th-graders). As in other countries, the numbers of COVID-19 infections increased drastically during fall 2020, resulting in a second school closure from December 17, 2020, until May 6, 2021.

In addition to school closures, Danish policies also included more extensive government-enforced lockdown measures, such as closure of movie theaters, restaurants, social distancing, ban of gatherings, work from home orders and mask mandates.

The study, which may be the first and only longitudinal study to assess whether personal memories predict declines in the psychological well-being of children and adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic, showed that the psychological well-being of adolescent females fared the worst.

Moreover, memories that included more factual information about COVID-19 and included more negative effects predicted more robust declines in psychological well-being. The findings underscore how aspects of personal memories might help exacerbate or attenuate the negative consequences of the experience of the COVID-19 period from March 2020 to July 2021.

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-08-qa-memories-pandemic-lockdowns-declines.html