Mental distress among adolescents was measured with SCL-5, which consists of five items measuring symptoms of anxiety and depression over the last two weeks. It correlates 0.92 [48] with the 25-item Hopkins Symptom Checklist [49], on which it is based. Previous studies have concluded that the measure has satisfactory validity and reliability [48,50]. Cronbach's alpha in the present study was 0.79. The recommended [50,51] cut-off (mean ≥ 2) rendered 15.6% of the adolescents as mentally distressed.
