‘Now my life is stuck!’: Experiences of adolescents and young people during COVID-19 lockdown in South Africa

Gittings, Lesley; Toska, Elona; Medley, Sally; Cluver, Lucie; Logie, Carmen H.; Ralayo, Nokubonga; Chen, Jenny; Mbithi-Dikgole, Jane

doi:10.1080/17441692.2021.1899262

Cited by 99 publications

(122 citation statements)

References 39 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

115

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Among these, the prevalence was higher for the unemployed (73%) and those living in urban informal areas (75%), suggesting that limited access to resources may have exacerbated mental health issues. Gittings et al (2021) conducted semi-structured interviews among adolescents and young adults in two South African provinces to identify challenges they faced as the country entered the first lockdown in March 2020. Findings indicated heightened psychosocial stress linked to uncertainty around education and future employment.…”

Section: Mental Health Impactmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of COVID-19 on the economy and mental health of young people in South Africa: opportunities for strengthening social protection programmes by integrating mental health

Álvarez-Iglesias

Garman

Lund

2021

South African Journal of Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The majority of COVID-19 cases in sub-Saharan Africa are found in South Africa, where one third of young people are not in employment, education or training. As the world continues to fight the COVID-19 virus spread, an increasing volume of studies are analysing and trying to predict the consequences of the pandemic on the economy and on physical and mental health. This article describes the economic and psychological impact of COVID-19 in South Africa’s youth specifically, the efforts made to tackle these issues, and the opportunities to integrate mental health into the country’s social protection measures, such as the Child Support Grant.

show abstract

Section: Mental Health Impactmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of COVID-19 on the economy and mental health of young people in South Africa: opportunities for strengthening social protection programmes by integrating mental health

Álvarez-Iglesias

Garman

Lund

2021

South African Journal of Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Despite our efforts, the stressors and strains associated with the pandemic may have diluted the effects of the ASPIRE intervention and standard of care. The illness and death of family members, social isolation associated with lockdown regulations, school closures and loss of education time, and worsening food insecurity (due to growing unemployment and halting of school feeding schemes) have almost certainly impacted the psychological well-being of South African adolescents [33]. ASPIRE participants in the control arm received a single intervention session and referral to standard care, namely non-government organisations and public health facilities serving adolescents.…”

Section: Responding To the Potential Impact Of Covid-19 And Protocol Changes On Trial Outcomesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Responding to COVID-19 threats to trial conduct: lessons learned from a feasibility trial of a psychological intervention for South African adolescents

Myers

Westhuizen

Pool

et al. 2021

Trials

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed challenges to the conduct of clinical trials. Strategies for overcoming common challenges to non-COVID-19 trial continuation have been reported, but this literature is limited to pharmacological intervention trials from high-income settings. The purpose of this paper is to expand the literature to include a low- and middle-income country perspective. We describe the challenges posed by COVID-19 for a randomised feasibility trial of a psychological intervention for adolescents in Cape Town, South Africa, and lessons learned when implementing strategies to facilitate trial continuation in this context. We used a Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle method to explore whether our adaptations were having the desired effect on trial accrual and retention. We found that stakeholder engagement, trial coordination and team communication need to be intensified while testing these procedural changes. We learned that strategies found to be effective in high-income countries required significant adaptation to our resource-constrained setting. The detailed documentation of extraneous influences, procedural changes and trial process information was essential to guiding decisions about which adaptations to retain. This information will be used to examine the potential impact of these changes on study outcomes. We hope that these reflections will be helpful to other trialists from low- and middle-income countries grappling with how to minimise the impact of public health emergencies on their research. Trial registration The trial is registered with the Pan African Clinical Trials Registry (PACTR20200352214510). Registered 28 February 2020. https://pactr.samrc.ac.za/TrialDisplay.aspx?TrialID=9795.

show abstract

“…Also, for many girls and young women living in rural areas, limited access to the internet has meant fewer opportunities to engage with others. As a recent article by Gittings et al (2021) on the perspectives of South African adolescents highlights, anxieties about the future, along with mental health issues in the here-and-now, have altered the landscape of what is even possible in what has become the psychological as well as physical universe.…”

Section: Storying Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Girl-led ‘from the ground up’ approaches to policy dialogue and policy change

Mitchell¹,

Moletsane²,

Choonara

2021

Agenda

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

‘Now my life is stuck!’: Experiences of adolescents and young people during COVID-19 lockdown in South Africa

Cited by 99 publications

References 39 publications

Effects of COVID-19 on the economy and mental health of young people in South Africa: opportunities for strengthening social protection programmes by integrating mental health

Effects of COVID-19 on the economy and mental health of young people in South Africa: opportunities for strengthening social protection programmes by integrating mental health

Responding to COVID-19 threats to trial conduct: lessons learned from a feasibility trial of a psychological intervention for South African adolescents

Girl-led ‘from the ground up’ approaches to policy dialogue and policy change

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About