Background. Recent years have witnessed global challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, potentially impacting mental health across populations. However, there remains a significant gap in longitudinal research examining these impacts comprehensively. This study investigated the temporal dynamics of mental health indicators and their interrelationships from the pre-pandemic period through the ongoing military conflict in Ukraine.

Methods. A longitudinal investigation comprising four time points was conducted with young adults from Lithuania and Germany (N = 432; 76.4% female; age: M=22.98, SD=6.35 at baseline). The research employed latent change analysis to examine temporal trajectories, latent class change analyses were used to identify patterns of change, and cross-lagged panel analysis was used to investigate relationships between mental health indicators over time.

Results. While aggregate-level analyses revealed stability in psychological well-being indicators throughout the study period, distinct patterns emerged in subgroup analyses. Individuals initially presenting with low levels of symptoms showed improvements over time, whereas those with elevated baseline symptoms experienced deterioration in depression, anxiety, and stress levels, accompanied by declining positive mental health (PMH). Furthermore, higher PMH scores during the pre-pandemic and second COVID-19 wave predicted reduced stress levels in subsequent years. Initial anxiety levels and anxiety during the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions were predictive of elevated stress in the following assessments.

Conclusions. The findings suggest differential vulnerability patterns among young adults during global crises, with most displaying psychological resilience while a subset with pre-existing psychological challenges shows increased susceptibility to adverse effects. Interventions focusing on enhancing positive mental health and managing anxiety may be particularly beneficial in supporting young adults during periods of global uncertainty.

For youth, being frequent users of social media has numerous social and emotional benefits, such as having access to peer support – however, social media can also expose youths to harmful content (Popat & Tarrant, 2023). One type of harmful content is disinformation, content that aims to mislead, usually to serve an ulterior motive (Wardle, 2018). When youth come across disinformation, they may be prone to sharing it due to social pressures from their peers (Duffy et al., 2020; Herrero-Diz et al., 2020) and thus, contribute to the spread of disinformation online (Duvekot et al., 2024). Within this landscape, Dutch youth represent a group that scores below the basic level for media literacy skills, skills crucial for identifying disinformation (Krepel et al., 2024). By conducting in-depth focus groups (expected N = 24-30) this study takes a qualitative and innovative approach to understanding how Dutch youth aged 16-21 perceive and deal with disinformation, and to what extent their social circle (e.g., friends and peers) influence these perceptions. During the group interviews, the participants will perform a task, creating disinformation using Generative AI that resembles disinformation that they have previously encountered. After the task, participants will be asked to reflect on their feelings about the task, as well as the generated output. This will allow us to understand both the defining attributes of the disinformation youths encounter, as well as how they relate to the content in terms of the emotions and thoughts that emerge during and after the process. By centring youths’ experiences, feelings, and encounters with disinformation, we aim to deepen the existing understanding of the extent to which disinformation affects Dutch youths. The results are informative for developing media literacy training material and can help tailor interventions to the experiences of today’s youth.

Dating violence is a social problem that affects the emotional, physical and social well-being of those who experience it. The different forms in which it presents itself reflect the complexity of these interpersonal dynamics, requiring analytical approaches that capture how it evolves over time. From a psycho-evolutionary perspective, early experiences of dating violence not only have immediate consequences, but can lay the foundation for accepting violent relationships in adulthood as well. Therefore, this study focuses on exploring how adolescent partners' involvement in violence evolves from a dynamic perspective that recognises its changing nature over time. The main objective is to understand the violent phases that adolescents go through and the factors that contribute to these transitions. Through a two-time longitudinal latent transitions analysis (LTA), we studied the form and types of adolescent couples' violent involvement and its evolution one year apart, exploring related variables such as duration, severity and types of involvement. The longitudinal design included a sample of 2,849 Spanish adolescents aged 12-18 years. The LTA allowed the identification of transition patterns between five previously defined latent states: not involved in violence; involved in mild forms of psychological-sexual or psychological-physical violence; and severe forms of psychological-physical-sexual violence (divided according to frequency of involvement). The results (still under analysis) make progress in (1) modelling the transition probabilities between latent states over a period of time, (2) looking at the types of involvement, and (3) determining gender differences in patterns of change. These findings shed light on the evolution of dating violence, highlighting the relationship with the escalation of violent behaviour. The complexity of the dynamics of violence, the usefulness of latent transition analysis, and implications for preventive interventions tailored to adolescents' specific trajectories are discussed.

Dating and relationship abuse (DRA) is common among adolescents and young adults and predicts physical and mental health problems and future victimization. A growing number of studies indicate that among adolescents and young adults DRA might be bidirectional (mutual). However, little is known about the factors might distinguish mutual from unidirectional (either victimization or perpetration) DRA). This exploratory study aimed to 1) explore which relational and individual characteristics may differentiate victims-perpetrators from victims, perpetrators, and young adults with no DRA experience and 2) explore if the impact of DRA differs among victims-perpetrators and victims only.

The sample consisted of 284 young adults (Mage=22.7 years; 58.8% women) recruited via the Prolific platform. Each participant completed independently a series of questionnaires to measure DRA victimization and perpetration, DRA impact, quality of romantic relationship, DRA beliefs, depression symptoms, resilience, and participant’s and partner’s negative emotionality.

Approximately 1 in 4 (24.6%) young adults were both victims and perpetrators of DRA. The most common type was psychological DRA. Comparisons among the four groups showed that young adults who experienced mutual DRA self-reported greater partner-expressed jealousy, criticism and had greater levels of character and behavior blame of the victim compared to perpetrators. When comparing victims-perpetrators and victims only, the results revealed that victims-perpetrators had lower resilience and greater anger compared to victims only. In terms of impact, more victims-perpetrators reported that DRA made them feel sad compared to victims only.

Future studies should identify the motivations and contexts under which mutual DRA emerges and identify whether victims become perpetrators when they actually attempt to defend themselves.