Examining the impact of a universal positive psychology program on mental health outcomes among Australian secondary students during the COVID-19 pandemic

Table 1 Participant characteristics of baseline sample (N = 438)

	Mean	SD (Range)
Age (years)	13.08	0.53 (12 to 15)
	N	%
Gender
Female	107	24.4
Male	322	73.5
Other	9	2.1
LGBTQI	11	2.5
Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander	27	6.2
History of mental health problems or mental illness	69	15.7
COVID exposure^a
Contracted COVID-19	3	0.9
Tested for COVID-19	59	16.8
Family member or close contract contracted COVID-19	16	4.5
Required to quarantine or self-isolate for 14 days	5	1.4
Severity of anxiety symptoms^b
Nil-minimal	352	80.4
Mild	23	5.3
Moderate	30	6.8
Severe	33	7.5
Severity of depressive symptoms^c
Nil-minimal	357	81.5
Mild	19	4.3
Moderate	25	5.7
Moderately-severe	21	4.8
Severe	16	3.7
Symptomatic at baseline	121	27.6
Reached threshold for both scales	46	10.5
Reached threshold for GAD-2 only	40	9.1
Reached threshold for PHQ-8 only	35	7.9

^a COVID exposure variables n = 352 due to survey administration at post assessment time point
^bSymptom severity for anxiety based on total scores: ‘nil to minimal’ (< 3 on GAD-2), ‘mild’ (3 to 9 on GAD-7), ‘moderate’ (10 to 14 on GAD-7), ‘severe’ (15 + on GAD-7)
^cSymptom severity for depression based on total scores: ‘nil to minimal’ (< 3 on PHQ-2), ‘mild’ (3 to 9 on PHQ-8), ‘moderate’ (10 to 14 on PHQ-8), ‘moderately severe’ (15 to 19 on PHQ-8), ‘severe’ (20+)

ISSN: 1753-2000