Psychological Resilience Interventions for Adolescents during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has had severe mental health effects on adolescents. Psychological resilience is the ability to recover quickly from adversity and can help adolescents cope with the stress and dangers brought by the pandemic better. Therefore, the current study aimed to explore the developmental pattern of psychological resilience in adolescents and to find the sensitive period for psychological resilience intervention to promote resilience in adolescents during the pandemic. The study measured the psychological resilience of a total of 559 adolescents using the Connor-Davidson resilience scale (CD-RISC) in four grades: grade 7 and grade 8 in a junior high school, and grade 10 and grade 11 in a high school. It was found that the resilience level of the adolescents decreased in grade 10 and then increased significantly in grade 11 (F = 4.22, p = 0.006). A 4-week resilience intervention was conducted in the four grades using both psychological course training and physical training. The results revealed that the psychological course training was effective in promoting resilience in the 7th (F = 4.79, p = 0.03) and 8th (F = 4.75, p = 0.03) grades, but not in the 10th and 11th grades. The result suggests that the 7th and 8th grades may be a critical period for psychological resilience interventions for adolescents.

Keywords: COVID-19; adolescents; resilience; resilience intervention.

Figure 1

Development pattern of resilience and three factors in all grades. Note. Error bars indicate standard errors.

Figure 2

The resilience differences between pre-intervention and post-intervention of three groups in the 7th grade. Note. Error bars indicate standard errors. * p > 0.05.

Figure 3

The resilience differences between pre-intervention and post-intervention of three groups in the 8th grade. Note. Error bars indicate standard errors. * p > 0.05. ** p > 0.01.