Abstract
The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has broadly impacted university students’ customary life, resulting in remarkable levels of stress and psychological suffering. Although the acute phase of the crisis has been overcome, it does not imply that perceived stress related to the risk of contagion and to the changes in the relational life experienced over more than 1 year of the pandemic will promptly and abruptly decrease. This study aims at comparing university students’ psychological health conditions before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, but also at providing information on how psychological health conditions evolved over the 1 year of the pandemic. We analyzed data from a repeated cross-sectional survey on different samples of university students before the pandemic in 2017 (n = 545) and during the pandemic (n = 671). During the pandemic, data were collected at three stages (Stage 1, April 2020 n = 197; Stage 2, November 2020 n = 274; and Stage 3, April 2021 n = 200). The COVID-19 Student Stress Questionnaire (CSSQ) and the Symptom-Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R) were used to assess, respectively, COVID-19-related stressors (Relationships and Academic Life, Isolation, and Fear of Contagion) and the presence of psychological symptoms. Psychological health conditions were compared at baseline and during the pandemic, whereas both psychological health conditions and perceived levels of COVID-19-related stressors were compared over the three pandemic stages. In addition, Logistic Regression was used to explore the associations between COVID-19-related stressors and psychological symptoms. Findings revealed a significant increase in symptoms of Depression (DEP), Phobic-Anxiety (PHOB), Obsessive-Compulsive (O-C), and Psychoticism (PSY) from pre to during the pandemic. Perceived levels of COVID-19-related stress and specific psychological symptoms significantly increased as the pandemic was progressing. COVID-19-related stressors emerged as significantly associated with several psychopathological symptoms. Findings are discussed with the aim of providing tailored interventions to prevent mental disease and promote psychological adjustment in this specific stage of transition within this exceptional global emergency.
Highlights
Responding to RQ2, findings from ANOVA and Bonferroni’s post hoc tests revealed a significant increase in perceived COVID-19-related stress and psychological symptoms reported in Stage 3 from those reported in Stage 1
With respect to COVID-19-related stressors, it emerged that perceived stress related to changes in Relationship and Academic Life, Isolation, and perceived Global Stress score in Stage 2 and in Stage 3 increased significantly from Stage 1
The present study aims at providing a greater understanding of the psychological impact of COVID-19 and containment measures among university students by comparing their psychological health conditions before and during the pandemic and by exploring how perceived levels of COVID-19-related stressors and psychological symptoms evolved over the 1 year of the global crisis
Summary
The spread of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and the consequent containment measures, which have been internationally adopted have significantly and extensively challenged people’ customary life, resulting in notable levels of psychological suffering reported by people worldwide (Cavalera, 2020; Lima et al, 2020; Rajkumar, 2020; Rossi et al, 2020; Becerra-García et al, 2021; Bueno-Notivol et al, 2021), and showing, in some cases, doubling and tripling of the prevalence of common mental illnesses (Pierce et al, 2020; Winkler et al, 2020) From this perspective, several studies have underlined the detrimental psychological impact of COVID-19 and containment measures, revealing high perceived loneliness, hopelessness, reduced life satisfaction, fatigue, and health anxiety among the health care workers, who are frontline facing the emergency, and across the general population (Wallace et al, 2020; Duong, 2021; Mansueto et al, 2021). Several studies have broadly explored the impact of the COVID-19 on university students’ lives, underlining a wide spread of different psychological symptoms (Li et al, 2021), such as stress and difficulties in concentrating (Son et al, 2020; Zurlo et al, 2020; Baltà-Salvador et al, 2021; Lardone et al, 2021; Somma et al, 2021), anxiety and depression (Cao et al, 2020; Husky et al, 2020; Galvin et al, 2021; Rusch et al, 2021), eating disorders, alcohol/ substance abuse (Gritsenko et al, 2020; Browning et al, 2021; Charles et al, 2021), sleep disorders (Debowska et al, 2020), and suicidal behaviors (Xu et al, 2021)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
