Mental condition of students from rural areas three months after returning to schools

Abstract

The conducted research aims to verify whether returning to schools, to the education inside the classroom in the company of their peers, improved or undermined the students’ mental health. The study was carried out on a sample of students inhabiting rural areas in a borderland region. The research sample was collected using purposive sampling and consisted of 552 respondents from 7th and 8th grades of primary school. An auditorium questionnaire was used to gather the research material. Three months after returning to school 61% of the respondents are satisfied with their lives, 52% of the respondents show symptoms of depression measured with the WHO-5 index, whereas 85% of them have average and high stress levels as measured with the PSSC scale. Higher levels of mental disorders was observed among females, the students inhabiting villages and evaluating their financial status as worse.

Keywords

• the covid-19 pandemic
• mental health
• students returning to schools
• adolescents
• rural areas