COVID 19 and the perceived impacts on adolescents’ and young adults’ mental health: A quantitative survey

The COVID 19 pandemic has led to more than 6.5 million deaths worldwide at present. Social restrictions focused on reducing the spread of the virus among the public, coupled with the pandemic itself before have had continuous detrimental impacts on mental health. The radical changes that young people had to go through due to this pandemic are likely a contributing factor to the potential changes in their mental health and wellbeing. The aim of this study was to explore to what extent the COVID 19 pandemic has affected young people’s mental health and wellbeing. We hypothesized that the COVID 19 pandemic would overall have a negative perceived impact on young adults’ mental health. We conducted an online survey which included the short General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) and received 102 valid responses. We found that overall young adults perceived the pandemic to be detrimental to many areas of their wellbeing, with females and those aged 18–19 and 22–23 years old being most significantly impacted.