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The present study was conducted twice over one year during the COVID-19 pandemic with Chinese adolescents ( n = 1582) to investigate the relationships among family socioeconomic status (SES), adolescent mental health problems, trait mindfulness, and perceived stress using self-reported measures. We administered the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS), the Perceived Stress Scale (PPS), the Self-rating Anxiety Scale (SAS), the Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), and Conduct Problem Tendency Inventory (CPTDI) to a sample of Chinese adolescents. The results prove that (1) there were significant correlations among socioeconomic status, trait mindfulness, perceived stress, and adolescent mental health problems, and the (2) serial mediation analysis indicated that trait mindfulness and perceived stress performed as mediators on the path from SES to anxiety, depression, and externalizing problems. Our findings provide a contribution by showing the connection between socioeconomic position and adolescent mental health problems and by offering a reference for the treatment of psychological issues affecting adolescents.

A recent study showed that a brief intervention involving reflection on personal values (T1: 2 February 2020) can buffer the anxiety response one week later (T2: Feb. 9) during the COVID-19 pandemic in China. The present study reported the results from a follow-up two weeks (T3: Feb. 16) and one-month later (T4: Mar. 1). Two hundred and twenty participants were recruited via convenience sampling and randomly assigned either to the value-affirmation condition or to a control condition, with 110 participants in each condition. The results revealed that similar to T2, participants who affirmed their values showed a lower anxiety response than those in the control group at T3, despite the pandemic continuing to increase rapidly during that time. Meanwhile, anxiety decreased in both groups at T4 as the pandemic eased. Findings suggest that self-affirmations can help reduce stress in the face of the COVID-19.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, mental health problems have increased and are likely to be influenced by personality traits. The present study investigated the association between personality traits and mental health problems (anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) symptoms, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) symptoms) through the person-centered approach because this has some advantages over the variable-centered approach. The data were collected from a sample of 765 Chinese citizens who participated in an online survey in October 2020. Latent profile analysis identified three latent personality profiles-highly adaptive, adaptive, and maladaptive. Highly adaptive individuals had higher extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness, and lower neuroticism, while maladaptive individuals had lower extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness, and higher neuroticism. Multivariate analysis of variance results showed that individuals with highly adaptive profiles had lower anxiety, depression, and PTSD symptoms compared to individuals with adaptive and maladaptive profiles. The findings of the present study indicate mental health professionals would benefit from formulated intervention plans given the association between latent personality profiles and mental health problems.