COVID-19: Health risk factors among students’ population in Albania

Abstract

Covid-19 pandemic is one of the most impactful events that has happened at 21st century. Changing the daily habits and facing serious health risks are common during this period of the pandemic, especially at the first year when the world population was unprepared. There have been different categories of people that suffered from such stressful impact. Student category also had a lot of difficulties in dealing with the changes and with severe health consequences. In this article there are described the complications Albanian students confronted during the first year of the pandemic. The study aimed to investigate mental health consequences on students and their ability to cope with the pandemic. This study is part of a longitudinal research with more data collected for an additional wave. Descriptive statistics are used to describe the evidence of depression rate, anxiety, and suicide ideation. Students were invited to compile an online questionnaire distributed on basis of a convenience sample. The outcome confirmed the hypothesis that on a psychological level there could have been some repercussions on student’s lifestyle, habits, and mental health. These results could lead to recommendations on how to build a better resilience to face properly the pandemic that is still ongoing.