High school students in armed conflict-affected North Wollo, Ethiopia, struggle with lived experiences of depression and academic challenges

The ongoing armed conflicts in Northern Ethiopia have been terribly damaging to the psychological health and educational trajectories of the students. There is an urgent need to understand the subjective, lived experiences of students dealing with this crisis. Accordingly, this study aims to explore the lived experience of depression and academic challenges among students because of the armed conflict in the North Wollo Zone, Ethiopia. This study used the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) approach to understand how depression and academic difficulties affect high school students. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with students who had screened positive for depressive symptoms, and the transcripts were analyzed through an iterative process of coding, developing themes, and interpretation. Five main themes emerged: the lived reality of pervasive conflict, a generation in despair, armed conflict sowing the seeds of distrust, an urgent need to be heard, and enduring the pain and seeking relief. These themes offer a deep, contextualized view of the students’ inner and outer worlds. This study found a vicious cycle among armed conflict-affected students, in which depression, academic difficulties, and social isolation all reinforce each other. These findings highlight the importance of integrated interventions that address mental health, educational continuity, and community-based resilience to effectively mitigate the compounding impacts of conflicts.