Impact of online education on mental health of matriculating adolescents during COVID-19 pandemic in Western India

Background: School closures during COVID-19-Pandemic introduced online teaching- learning in low-&middle-income-countries (LMIC). We aimed to assess its impact on mental health (MH) of adolescents in India studying for matriculation. Material & Methods: A cross sectional study was carried out in Maharashtra, India in 2021. MH of matriculating adolescents was assessed by presence of symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress (DAS) using DASS-42 and emotional intelligence (EI) by Schutte’s self-report EI test (SET) with collection of socio-demographic information maintaining confidentiality. Higher are the DAS scores, greater is the severity of symptoms and higher the score better is EI. They were categorized as per convention by their inventors. Data were analyzed by SPSS-20 software. Impact of online teaching was assessed by comparing results of present study with pre- pandemic pilot and other studies. Results: Total 1103 adolescents participated, 42.9% were boys & 57.1% were girls. Mean age was 14.7 (+0.75) years, majority from middle socio-economic- status. Median DAS, EI scores showed no evidence of symptoms of DAS with EI in normal category. DAS scores were significantly lower and EI score was significantly higher than reported in pre-pandemic pilot and other studies.&nbsp