In my thesis I researched the mental health of secondary school students during the covid-19 epidemic. The epidemic was a sudden and unknown situation we found ourselves in and it had a profound impact on the lives of all of us. The main interest of the thesis is how the epidemic affected secondary school pupils specifically and their mental health.
In my work, I first described what mental health is, then I described the social model of mental health, presented social work in general, social work in relation to mental health and with adolescents. Further, I present phenomenological approach to mental distress, mental health and adolescents, mental health in times of crisis, mental health problems, where I discussed stress, depression and anxiety and what are protective and risk factors. I conclude the theoretical introduction with a covid-19 description in general, covid-19 in Slovenia and explained the difference between and epidemic and a pandemic.
In the empirical part, I first asked the interviewees what their mental health was like before the epidemic, then if anything had changed during the epidemic, and if anything had what had the most impact on that change. I asked them if they had kept in touch with friends, if they noticed any distress in themselves that they had not before. In the end, I asked them how the restrictions/measures affected their life plan and future and if so, how they think they will solve this.
I received different answers from my interlocutors and came to the conclusion that everyone experienced that time differently. Mental health changed for the better for some, for the worse for others, and others did not notice any major changes in themselves.
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