Journal Article

Association between physical activity and adolescent mental health in the post COVID-19: The chain mediating effect of self-esteem and social anxiety

Zhao, Xiuhan, Ge, Zhang, Zhu, Qiying, Li, Tuojian, Feng, Wanxuan, Zhao, Liangyu

2024

Overview

In order to gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between physical activity and adolescent mental health in the post COVID-19 pandemic era, self-esteem and social anxiety were used as mediating variables to explore the potential mechanisms by which physical activity affects adolescent mental health. The study used the HELP-II Health Promoting Lifestyle Scale, the SPIN Social Phobia Scale, the Self-Esteem Scale, and the 10-item Kessler Psychological Distress Scale to administer questionnaires to 400 Chinese secondary school students, and SPSS 26.0 and PROCESS 3.3 were used to process the data. The findings showed that (1) physical activity was significantly and positively associated with mental health; (2) self-esteem and social anxiety played a fully mediating role between physical activity and adolescent mental health respectively; (3) self-esteem and social anxiety played a chain mediating role between physical activity and adolescent mental health. This study reveals the relationship and influencing mechanism between physical activity and adolescent mental health in the post COVID-19 pandemic era. Appropriate interventions for physical activity, self-esteem, and social anxiety may be beneficial to adolescent mental health. The protective role of self-esteem in adolescent mental health should be the focus of future studies, and further investigations into the association between the COVID-19 and adolescent mental health are warranted.

• Publisher: Public Library of Science,Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subject: Adolescent / Adolescents / Anxiety / Anxiety - psychology / Biology and Life Sciences / Child & adolescent mental health / China - epidemiology / College students / Colleges & universities / COVID-19 / COVID-19 - epidemiology / COVID-19 - psychology / Epidemics / Exercise / Exercise - psychology / Extracurricular activities / Fear & phobias / Female / Females / Health education / Health promotion / Humans / Male / Mediation / Medical research / Medicine and Health Sciences / Mental Health / Pandemics / People and Places / Phobia, Social - psychology / Physical activity / Physical education / Physical fitness / Psychological aspects / Psychological distress / Psychological factors / Psychological stress / Questionnaires / SARS-CoV-2 / Secondary school students / Secondary schools / Self Concept / Self esteem / Social anxiety / Social interaction / Social Sciences / Stress (Psychology) / Students - psychology / Surveys and Questionnaires / Teenagers / Youth participation