Changes in family and school environment during the Covid-19 pandemic and their relationship with changes in psychological distress and loneliness among Norwegian adolescents: The HUNT study

In this follow-up study, we investigated how levels of psychological distress, loneliness, family cohesion, teacher support, and peer support changed from before to during the Covid-19 pandemic among Norwegian adolescents (ages 13-19), and whether these changes were predicted by parental education. Additionally, we investigated whether changes in family cohesion, teacher support, and peer support were associated with changes in psychological distress and loneliness, and whether these change-to-change associations were moderated by parental education. Data from the Young-HUNT4 (2017-2019, T1) and Young-HUNT COVID (May-June 2021, T2) surveys were used, in which 1565 adolescents participated in both (response rate = 45%). We specified univariate and multivariate two-wave latent change score models to investigate the aims of this study. Results indicated that levels of psychological distress, loneliness, family cohesion, teacher support, and peer support worsened from T1 to T2. None of these changes were significantly predicted by parental level of education. Deteriorations in family cohesion, teacher support, and peer support were weakly related to increases in psychological distress (β = 0.17, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.11 to 0.23; β = 0.10, 95% CI 0.04 to 0.16; β = 0.09, 95% CI 0.02 to 0.15), and loneliness (β = 0.10, 95% CI 0.05 to 0.15; β = 0.08, 95% CI 0.02 to 0.13; β = 0.12, 95% CI 0.06 to 0.18). Although largely similar, deteriorations in family cohesion were somewhat more strongly associated with increases in psychological distress among adolescents with parents of lower levels of education.