The emotional state of young people in Spain after two years and a half of the COVID-19 pandemic (Part II)

 

Materials and methods

Participants and procedure An anonymous online survey was administered to young people aged between 18 and 35 years from the Basque Autonomous Community  after one year and a half of the pandemic (from July to August 2021) through the Google Form platform. The sample was recruited using a nonprobabilistic sampling procedure. The dissemination of the research was done through social networks, universities, educational centers and youth leisure centers. This study recruited a total sample of 479 participants (mean age = 21.65; SD = 4.39 y). Of the participants, 17.7% (n = 85) were male, 81.6% (n = 391) were female and 0.6% ( n= 3) were considered non-binary. The Ethics Committee of the University of the Basque Country (code M10/2020/070) approved the study. All the canons established by Organic Law 15/99 on Personal Data Protection were followed for data collection. Therefore, the procedures followed were in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki of the World Medical Association. Measures and instruments An ad hoc questionnaire in Spanish was used to collect information related to chronic illness, living with a chronically ill person, having been infected by COVID-19, having a close person or family member who has died from COVID-19, and their perception of whether or not people are respecting the health measures. Stress, anxiety, and depression symptoms were measured using the Depression and Anxiety Stress Scale-21 (DASS- 21). The DASS-21 scale is composed of 21 items. These are scored on a Likert-type scale with scores ranging from (0 = It has not happened to me) to (3 = It has happened to me a lot or almost always). The three subscales of the DASS-21 have seven items for depression, seven for anxiety, and seven for stress. Each subscale is scored from 0 to 21. To categorize the symptoms of stress, anxiety, and depression, the cut-off points analyzed by Antony et all were used: no symptoms, mild, moderate, severe, and extremely severe. The DASS-21 has acceptable reliability and good validity. Regarding reliability in our study, the total Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was = 0.93 for the depression scale = 0.90 for the anxiety scale = 0.92 and the stress scale = 0.82. In addition, the DASS-21 has been a validated measurement instrument during the COVID-19 pandemic in different countries.32-34

Data analysis

Statistical analyses were performed using the SPSS statistics software (version 26.0, IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA). The

data were checked for compliance with the assumptions of normality and homoscedasticity of variances. The Kolmogorov-

Smirnov statistics indicates that the data do not follow a normal distribution; however, taking into account the skewness

and kurtosis, which in most of the variables does not exceed 1, allowed us to use parametric tests for the analysis

of the results. At this point, it is worth considering that there is support in the scientific literature on the robustness of

parametric tests even when there is a violation of the assumptions of normality and homoscedasticity.

First  the relationship between psychological symptomatology and sociodemographic characteristics were analyzed using

T-tests. Cohen’s d was calculated to document differences between those adolescents adhering, and those not-adhering,

to dietary compliance criteria. This coefficient measures the effect size, and may be especially relevant in cases of small

samples, when the differences found do not reach statistical significance. The effect size (Cohen’s d) was classified as

‘small’ (»0.2), ‘medium’ (»0.5) or ‘large’ (»0.8). Second, frequencies and percentages of presence of anxiety, depression

and stress were described according to the variables specifically related to the pandemic. To study the association

between psychological symptomatology and pandemic variables, the chi-square statistics was used. Subsequently, the

analyses were stratified according to the two age groups (18- 25 and 26 to 35 years) and gender (male vs female).

A.Fernandez (Ayudo)

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