Psychoeducation to Overcome High School Adolescents’ Anxiety in Facing Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The purpose of this activity is for adolescents to get the right information, answer most of their questions, and reduce their anxiety. This community service activity in the form of community intervention is packaged in the form of psychoeducation and discussion on the topic of the Covid-19 pandemic, its effect on psychological conditions, and ways to overcome it aimed at high school aged adolescents. The activity will collaborate with partner schools. The main activity partner is SLTA Sekolah Alam Insan Mulia (SAIM) Surabaya, which is used to using online learning methods. The speakers are medical experts or epidemiologists, health psychologists, and clinical psychologists. The activity was held on September 26, 2020 at 13.00 WIB. The number of participants who attended was 90 people, consisting of 85 students and 5 teachers. Participants came from partner schools, namely SMA Alam Insan Mulia (SAIM) and several high schools in the East Java region

Introduction

High school students who are exposed to their cognitive and social development with information about the new, unknown COVID-19 pandemic can cause psychological problems in the form of anxiety of varying intensity. This is because adolescents have the ability to choose limited information, especially about new things that even health professionals have not come to a unanimous conclusion. The anxiety experienced by high school adolescents can result in other problems such as concentration skills, academic performance, and behavioral problems. Even based on various previous studies, long-lasting anxiety conditions also have the potential for more serious problems such as depression and PTSD. On the other hand, during this development period, the late adolescents at the high school level also have the ability to think logically and critically and encourage the exploration of knowledge that develops actively. Therefore, these high school-level adolescents need to get interactive packaged information about the Covid-19 pandemic, its effect on psychological conditions, and how to deal with it.[1];[3]

Methods

The activity was conducted in the form of online seminar using Zoom as the media. It was conducted as a one session seminar. Participants of the program were high school students from partner school, SMA Sekolah Alam Insan Mulia (SMA SAIM), and representative students from several other high schools in Surabaya and surrounding. Several teachers also joined the seminar. There were three topics presented, those were: (1) Understanding Pandemic Covid-19, (2) Psychological aspects of Pandemic on adolescents, and (3) Expressive Art for Adolescents. Those topics were delivered by three senior lecturers from Airlangga University: 1) Prof. Dr. Cholichul Hadi, psychologist (Faculty of Psychology), 2) Endang R. Surjaningrum, M AppPsych, PhD, psychologist (Faculty of Psychology), and 3) Edi Dwi Riyanto, M Hum, PhD. (Faculty of Humanities). The seminar were enriched by an interactive survey using mentimeter to invite active participation of participants and explore their ideas. To measure the effect of seminar to participants, the committee delivered a pretest and posttest questionnaire asking participants feelings and opinion about the topics. The pre test was delivered a day before the seminar while posttest were delivered an hour after the seminar.[2]

Results

The activity was held on Saturday, 26 September 2020 at 13.00 WIB through Zoom. The number of participants who attended was 90 people, consisting of 85 students and 5 teachers from the Insan Mulia Natural High School (SAIM) and several high schools in the East Java region. Beside Surabaya, participants came from Jombang, Krian, Situbondo, anad Madiun. The pretest and posttest were responses by all student participants. As many as 56.5% of participants stated that their current feelings are loneliness, tired because of piling up academic tasks, feeling stressed, and bored because they cannot interact with friends, so they feel confused about expressing their current uncomfortable feelings. Several participants also expressed feelings of anxiety and worry about what would happen next in the future. At the beginning of the activity, participants were asked to fill in an interactive survey using mentimeter where participants’ responses were displayed at the same time. In the survey, participants were asked to answer several questions such as their current feelings and what activities were carried out during the pandemic.

As many as 43.5% of participants felt that the current feeling was quite good, felt tired but tried to remain optimistic because there was nothing else to do other than accept the current condition. Several participants stated that good feelings arose because of being grateful to still be able to connect with friends online. Some of the activities carried out by most of the participants while at home were watching movies, cooking, gardening, playing games, helping parents, exercising, and various other activities that can be done at home. Participants also actively asked question. 18 questions came up which were written through chat feature in the media. The questions covers topics such as: were about:

Why people should change clothes when they get home
Why people prefer to spent money for other things except nutritious foods
How to improve motivation to study, maintain concentration, and being productive during SFH
How to overcome psychological complaints, e.g. using self-help strategy
What are the best way to study
Why many people do not believe in the existence of the Virus
How to adjust school activities with unsupported situation at home
Are homework and assignment the best teaching method in this situation, since students need to work on it until late

After the seminar, participants were asked to share their opinion toward the seminar and their future plan. 92 of them felt better because they got new information about their psychological state, felt more motivated and have spent meaningful time. The rest said that they cannot describe their feeling. More than three quarter of them were satisfied to the seminar. The benefits felt by most of the participants included getting information about things that can be done in dealing with stressful conditions during a pandemic, helping to accept current conditions, opening insights so that they have a more positive mindset, and getting information about expressive techniques that can be practiced at home.[4];[5] In addition, the seminar were also linked to You Tube Channel so many more students could find it.

The first material was delivered by Mr. Cholicul Hadi with the title "Recognizing the Covid-19 Pandemic", the second material was delivered by Mrs. Endang Surjaningrum with the title "Psychological Aspects of Pandemic in Adolescents", the third material was delivered by Mr. Edi with the title "Expressive Methods for Adolescents".

On the sidelines of the provision of material, quizzes were also given as a form of interaction between participants and resource persons.

Conclusion

In sum, the seminar that target young people about Pandemic COvid-19 that change their life has reached the goal successfully. Participants feel better after having enough information since they understand what happened to their psychological life. They also got ideas about how to spent time using expressive activities.

References