Emotional Shifts and Recovery in the Post-COVID-19 Era: A Retrospective Survey Among Adolescents in Vietnam

Abstract

Recognizing widespread emotional and mental health issues among students during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is crucial to investigate whether recovery and resilience have emerged in the post-pandemic era. A retrospective survey was conducted with high school students in Da Nang, a Vietnamese tourist city that endured multiple waves of COVID-19 from 2020 to 2022. The survey was conducted 18 months after Da Nang was locked down and had only recently entered the ‘new normal’ phase in early 2023. Results revealed that even though the pandemic had subsided, negative emotional experiences remained vivid in students’ memories, even when the pandemic was internationally declared to have ended. Fears of illness, death, isolation, losing social connections, and disruptions in academic paths still lingered. Nevertheless, a significant rebound from predominantly negative to positive emotions was observed among the young people. Understanding which negative emotions affected students the most will allow us to devise more targeted policies and provide more effective social services in response to similar public health crises in the future.

Keywords

• emotional well-being
• adolescent mental health
• COVID-19 pandemic