TeenCovidLife: a resource to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescents in Scotland

Abstract

TeenCovidLife is part of Generation Scotland’s CovidLife projects, a set of longitudinal observational studies designed to assess the psychosocial and health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. TeenCovidLife focused on how adolescents in Scotland were coping during the pandemic. As of September 2021, Generation Scotland had conducted three TeenCovidLife surveys. Participants from previous surveys were invited to participate in the next, meaning the age ranges shifted over time. TeenCovidLife Survey 1 consists of data from 5,543 young people age 12 to 17, collected from 22 May to 5 July 2020, during the first school closures period in Scotland. TeenCovidLife Survey 2 consists of data from 2,245 young people aged 12 to 18, collected from 18 August to 14 October 2020, when the initial lockdown measures were beginning to ease, and schools reopened in Scotland. TeenCovidLife Survey 3 consists of data from 597 young people age 12 to 19, collected from 12 May to 27 June 2021, a year after the first survey, after the schools returned following the second lockdown in 2021. A total of 316 participants took part in all three surveys. TeenCovidLife collected data on general health and well-being, as well as topics specific to COVID-19, such as adherence to COVID-19 health guidance, feelings about school closures, and the impact of exam cancellations. Limited work has examined the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on young people. TeenCovidLife provides relevant and timely data to assess the impact of the pandemic on young people in Scotland. The dataset is available under authorised access from Generation Scotland; see the Generation Scotland website for more information.

The Effect of School Bullying on Pupils’ Perceived Stress and Wellbeing During the Covid-19 Pandemic: A Longitudinal Study

“…Firstly, the sample is not representative of the Scottish adolescent population. Female participants, white participants, and those from higher socioeconomic backgrounds were over-represented in TeenCovidLife (Huggins et al, 2022). The study also had a relatively small sample size.…”

“…The data for this analysis were taken from TeenCovidLife, a longitudinal dataset examining the psychosocial and mental health impacts of Covid-19 on 12 to 17 year olds living in Scotland, UK. This dataset has been described in detail elsewhere (Huggins et al, 2022). Briefly, anyone living in Scotland who had access to the internet and was aged 12 to 17 when they joined TeenCovidLife could take part.…”

“…Therefore, we sought to investigate the relationship between experience of bullying and adolescent wellbeing during lockdown and subsequent re-opening of schools. To do this we used TeenCovidLife (Huggins et al, 2022), a longitudinal dataset examining the psychosocial and health impacts of Covid-19 on 12 to 17 year-olds living in Scotland, UK. Measures were collected at three timepoints corresponding to: the first Covid-19 lockdown (Time 1); pupils' return to school after the first lockdown (Time 2); and the summer term of 2021 which coincided with pupils returning to school after another lockdown in early 2021 (Time 3).…”

Generation Scotland: an update on Scotland’s longitudinal family health study

“…Three COVIDLife surveys 16 and a Rural COVIDLife survey, 17 specific to rural Scottish volunteers, were conducted (total n=3365, GS participants n=712). In addition, three TeenCOVIDLife surveys, 18 for young people aged 12-18 years (n=7058), were run between April 2020 and June 2021. GS was part of the National Core Studies Longitudinal Health and Wellbeing programme established as part of the UK's pandemic response, including the coronavirus post-acute long-term effects: constructing an evidence base (CONVALESCENCE) long COVID study.…”

Locking down adolescents: Victims, irresponsible subjects, or just social actors

“…Numerous studies have investigated the lives of adolescents during the pandemic, focusing on relationships within the family (among others, Janssen et al, 2020), at school (among others, Brooks et al, 2020), with peers (among others, Oosterhoff et al, 2020), and on the consequences of the social reorganisation linked to COVID‐19 on health and psycho‐physical well‐being (among others, Huggins et al, 2021). This article focuses on the social and relational marginalisation of 134 adolescents during the pandemic, presenting findings of a pilot research project based on their point of view and carried out in cooperation with the Italian National Institute for Health, Migration, and Poverty.…”