Cape Town - A new study into the emotional well-being of young people during the Covid-19-related lockdown in the country has revealed that the majority were suffering from depression.
The study conducted by Dr Gibson Mudiriza and Associate Professor Ariane De Lannoy from the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit (Saldru) at the University of Cape Town (UCT), showed that more than 7 million young people aged 18 to 35 already lived in poverty and close to 10 million were not in education, employment or training.
The study found that those young people typically experienced a multitude of deprivations, which included food insecurity, poor health and geographic exclusion.
Mudiriza said their results showed a prevalence of depressive symptoms in 72% of the young participants. This was high and worrisome when compared with the mental health results of youth gathered outside of the Covid-19 context.
“When disaggregated by various characteristics, the prevalence of depressive symptoms was found to be higher among older, female, and white youth and those with higher education,” he said.
Mudiriza said multivariate regression analysis further showed that depressive symptoms were positively associated with being female, being older, having higher education and residing in urban informal areas, while they were negatively associated with being employed and offering family care.
De Lannoy said the high rate of depressive symptoms among participants in urban informal areas might be driven by their fear and the high probability of contracting the virus due to dense living conditions and poor sanitation.
She said those conditions make social distancing and handwashing difficult, thereby increasing the risk of infection. "As a result, young people are experiencing increased levels of insecurity in a context where the majority were already vulnerable and disproportionately affected by unemployment and poverty."
Cape Argus