COVID

The health crisis caused by COVID-19 led to a series of restrictive measures worldwide. Amongst them, a period of lockdown that resulted in a decrease in social contact, which had a series of effects at the emotional, educational, and social levels, the greatest concern being the mental health effects in minors. The aim of this study is to analyse mental health disorders affecting Primary Education students before and during the pandemic, at emotional, social and behavioural levels. A total of 1045 students from different educational centres, in 5th and 6th year of Primary Education, of both sexes and aged between 10 and 12 years old, took part in the study. The instrument used was the “Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, SDQ”, which measures mental health disorders in minors. The results indicate that during the pandemic there was an increase in emotional problems among minors, alongside a decrease in hyperactivity, conduct problems, and peer-related problems. Social distancing during the pandemic may have acted as a key mediating variable in the observed outcomes. It is concluded that these results are important in preventing psychological effects on the mental health of minors in crisis situations.

The COVID-19 pandemic altered individuals’ worldviews. This study examined how cultural values shaped the ways students navigated stress and adapted after the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on Conservation of Resources (COR) Theory and cultural psychology frameworks of individualism and collectivism, we hypothesized that university students in two culturally distinct contexts—China and Canada—would demonstrate resilience differently. Chinese students would display collectivistic coping strategies (e.g., social responsibility and perspective-taking), while Canadian students would show resilience through individualistic strategies (e.g., personal reflection and self-efficacy). A total of 814 students completed a mixed-methods survey assessing resilience, cognitive reflection, and post-pandemic adaptations. Quantitative data were analyzed using factor analysis and stepwise regression to identify predictors. Qualitative responses were thematically analyzed for context. Results revealed cultural differences in resilience and adaptation, with social responsibility, healthy habits, and third-person perspective-taking predicting the responses of Chinese students, whereas internal emotional processing and personal moral reflection predicting it for Canadian students. This study enhances cross-cultural understanding of resilience and adaptation after collective trauma.

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the fragility of global health systems, as physicians faced extremely challenging conditions including excessive workloads, infection risk, and high patient mortality. We conducted a cross-sectional survey that aimed to assess the post-pandemic prevalence of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in a sample of Greek physicians who worked on the frontline during the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic. An online survey was conducted between 1 March and 31 July 2023, in which 200 Greek physicians were invited via e-mail to voluntarily answer a confidential online questionnaire, and 58 of them responded. The survey included two clinically validated tools: the Patient Health Questionnaire-4 (PHQ-4) and the Impact of Event Scale—Revised (IES-R). Univariate correlations of 26 exposure variables with anxiety, depression, combined anxiety/depression, and PTSD were performed. In total, 58 eligible physicians (46.6% female) participated in this study. The rates of anxiety, depression, combined anxiety/depression, and PTSD were 27.5% (95% CI: 16.7–40.9), 31.0% (19.5–44.5), 22.4% (12.5–35.3), and 24.1% (13.9–37.2), respectively. Notably none of the physicians working in a laboratory developed any mental health symptoms. The following factors were found to be associated with the development of higher mental health symptoms: age ≤ 30, employment in healthcare ≤ 10 years, working in COVID-19 wards, working in intensive care units or COVID-19 wards, a history of mental health symptoms, a history of physical conditions, shortages of materials and equipment for diagnosing or treating patients, development of a disease other than COVID-19, and the development of a new mental health condition during the pandemic (p < 0.05 for all associations). Our findings highlight the need to better prepare physicians with adequate materials, infrastructure, and psychological support such that, in a potential future health crisis, they will not be at such high risk of mental health problems.