Students who before the COVID-19 pandemic already had mental health problems adhered less to online classes during the period of social isolation, when educational establishments were closed. That is, even having access to the internet, these students stopped participating in distance learning. On the other hand, among those who joined the modality, there was no record of a direct impact on mental health.
These are the main findings of a study carried out by Brazilian researchers that compared the effects of mental symptoms in the same young people before and during the pandemic. Among these symptoms are, for example, hyperactivity and problems with peer relationships or behavior. The work has been published on the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science’s PsyArXiv Preprints platform and is awaiting the peer review process.
“As students’ mental health is an impact factor in education, we seek to understand the influence of this in online classes. We concluded that the previous problems increased the inequality of access to the distance system, but the online class system itself had no impact on symptoms”, explains neuroscientist Patrícia Pinheiro Bado, from Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, linked to the University Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), and first author of the article.
The research was supported by FAPESP and included a sample of 672 students between 16 and 24 years old with internet access. Of these, 511 enrolled in online classes and 161 (31.5%) did not enroll in distance education while institutions were closed.
Students were assessed before and during the pandemic using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). The method tracks mental health problems into four subscales: hyperactivity, emotional, conduct, and relationship problems. Data analysis was performed with the help of multiple regression models and adjusted to not be influenced by previous negative school events, such as suspensions and repetitions, number of days without face-to-face classes, socioeconomic status, gender and age.
The scientists wanted to investigate two main points: whether pre-pandemic mental health problems were associated with access to online learning, and whether those who embraced distance learning would have fewer mental health problems during isolation.
The conclusion was that having a previous symptom of mental disorder increases the chance that the young person will not access online classes. According to the article, a one-point increase on the SDQ scale, which ranges from 0 to 40, before the pandemic increases the chance of non-participation at a distance by 6%.
This comparison between the two moments was possible because the participants are part of the Brazilian High-Risk Cohort Study for Childhood Psychiatric Disorders (BHRC), a large community-based survey that has followed 2,511 children and young people since 2010.
The BHRC, also known as the Connection Project – Minds of the Future, is considered one of the main follow-ups on the risks of mental disorders already carried out in Brazilian psychiatry. It is part of the National Institute of Developmental Psychiatry for Children and Adolescents (INPD), supported by FAPESP and the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq).
The INPD has more than 80 professors and researchers from 22 universities and its general coordinator is Eurípedes Constantino Miguel Filho, professor at the Department of Psychiatry at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of São Paulo (FM-USP).
Analysis by sex
The researchers did not find, during the evaluation of the results, an association between being in an online class and developing mental symptoms. One point that the scientists were able to detect in the cross-sectional analysis, but which was fully explained by the symptom records before the pandemic, was the fact that students who accessed distance classes had fewer inattention/hyperactivity problems compared to participants who did not access the classes. classes.
The analysis by sex had an impact on adherence to these classes: girls were 2.3 times more likely to be enrolled in distance learning compared to boys.
“During the pandemic, the factors that influenced the students’ mental health were the fact that they already had previous problems, financial difficulties faced by the family and also sex: girls reported more mental health problems than boys,” Bado told Agência FAPESP. .
Scientists point out, however, that it was not possible to compare the mental health of students who were in remote teaching with those in face-to-face classes, since almost all participants in the sample could not attend the educational institution due to isolation measures. social (only four had face-to-face classes at some point during the pandemic period). As a result, it has not yet been possible to measure the impact of school closures.
For researcher Mauricio Scopel Hoffmann, associate professor at the Department of Neuropsychiatry at the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM) and co-author of the article, the work contributes to the formulation of projects that seek to identify these children and young people with mental health problems.
“These results speak to our previous study, which showed the impact of externalizing disorders [como agressividade, déficit de atenção e hiperatividade] in the school evolution of children, especially girls. Early detection of these students at risk can help to circumvent this situation of educational inequality”, completes Hoffmann.
In another article published late last year in the journal Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences, the group of scientists had already shown the negative impact of mental disorders, especially externalizing ones, on education. It is estimated that between 5% and 10% of repetitions and age-grade distortions (individuals outside the age-appropriate grade) would not occur if mental health problems were prevented or treated (read more at: agencia.fapesp.br/ 37419).
The researcher reinforces that detecting young people at risk of dropping out of studies and prioritizing public policies with appropriate treatments could prevent school dropout and even engage them in distance learning. “The worst situation is leaving them out of the education system. They may not go back to school and, in the future, be underemployed, with low income, perpetuating inequality.”
In Brazil, around 244,000 children and adolescents between the ages of 6 and 14 were out of school in the second quarter of 2021, an increase of 171% compared to 2019. Contínua Households (PNAD Contínua), also pointed to a drop in the percentage of people of the same age group enrolled in elementary or high school. While 99% were enrolled in 2019, in 2021 the number dropped to 96%, the lowest since 2012.
“We are increasingly seeing that mental health is a very important factor for students to enter and remain in educational institutions. Therefore, educational policies cannot be thought of in isolation from other factors, but in conjunction with health issues,” says Bado. According to the researcher, a next step will be to analyze the learning impact of young people who participated in online classes during the pandemic.
Another survey, also released by the organization Todos pela Educação in early February, pointed out that almost 41% of Brazilian children between 6 and 7 years old could not read or write last year. In two years, the number jumped from 1.429 million (equivalent to 25% of children in the age group) in 2019 to 2.367 million (40.8%) in 2021.