FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH THE DECREASE IN DEPRESSION AMONG ADOLESCENTS DURING THE FIRST COVID-19 LOCKDOWN, A NATURAL EXPERIMENT

The COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions have caused unprecedented interruptions to the daily lives of children and adolescents. This unusual situation has brought stress, fear, economic problems, and limited access to health services, leisure time or sport opportunities as well as a lack of social support from important people. The main aim of this natural experiment was to find out the degree in which of family factors, peer factors and adolescent neuroticism played in changes in depression after the first COVID-19 lockdown. The data for T1 were collected in February 2020 and a follow-up (T2) was conducted in May 2020. In total, 155 adolescents participated in both waves (mean age 14.5 years, 60.4% girls). We used the abbreviated Kutcher Adolescent Depression Scale, Psychological Control Scale - Youth Self-Report, Feelings of Being Overly Controlled scale. One question was aimed towards satisfaction with the relationship with the mother and one question was aimed towards relationship with friends. Supportive relationships at home was measured by a subscale from the Resilience and Youth Development Module, and neuroticism was measured by a highly shortened version of the Big Five Inventory.