COVID-19 social and economic disruptions, mental health, and coping behaviours among young Canadians: a structural equation model
Loading...
Date
2025
Authors
Onyeso, Ogochukwu K.
Boco, Adebiyi
Islam, Md Kamrul
Darku, Alexander
Hallstrom, Lars K.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic increased the prevalence of mental health disorders among youths. This study explored the association between COVID-19’s social and economic disruptions, mental health disorders, and coping behaviours among youths using Statistics Canada’s COVID-19 and Mental Health data. The study included 895 participants aged 18–24 years (52.9% women). Social and economic disruptions, healthy and unhealthy coping behaviours, and mental health severity (MHS) latent variables were delineated through exploratory factor analysis. Structural equation modelling revealed that social disruptions significantly increased the MHS (β = 0.77, p < 0.001), as well as healthy (β = 0.25, p < 0.001) and unhealthy (β = 0.54, p < 0.001) coping behaviours. Similarly, economic disruption was associated with an increase in healthy coping behaviours (β = 0.14, p = 0.043). Healthycoping behaviours (β=-0.08, p = 0.047) and positive coping skills (mastery) (β = -0.26, p < 0.001) were associated with a reduction in MHS. Positive coping behaviours mediated the social impact of COVID-19 on youth MHS; negative behaviours (substance use) had no significant mediation effect.
Description
Open access article. Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license (CC BY-NC 4.0) applies
Keywords
Anxiety , Depression , Mental health disorder , Resilience , Social disruptions , Youth , Coping behavior , COVID-19 , Economic disruptions
Citation
Onyeso, O. K., Boco, A., Islam, , M. K., Darku, A., & Hallstrom, L. K. (2025). COVID-19 social and economic disruptions, mental health, and coping behaviours among young Canadians: A structural equation model. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 30(1), Article 2451674. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673843.2025.2451674