Abstract
Background: COVID-19 pandemic has created numerous psycho-social issues throughout the world. Aim: The current study is aimed at identifying and validating the psychosocial reactions of university students to current pandemic COVID-19. Methods: Mixed-methods research design was used. Initially, the presenting problems of 39 university studentswere collated and a list of 28 items was finalized and presented to 15 experienced clinical psychologists for the frequency of occurrence for Psychosocial Reaction Scale (PRS). An online survey was conducted on 510 university students with an age range of 17-26 (M=21.86; SD=2.94) and presented Psychosocial Reaction Scale (PRS) and Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS) for construct validity. Results: Results of both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses revealed a two-factor model depressive symptoms and apprehension. The PRS shown a satisfactory internal consistency and construct validity. Conclusion: The findings are further discussed in the continual significance and counseling plans to handle adverse reactions of COVID-19 in Pakistani university students.
Highlights
The recent pandemic of COVID-19 has threatened the whole world with fears, uncertainty with restricted social engagement to curtail the spread[1]
For the analysis, the data of five hundred and ten university students were divided into the two groups to run the Exploratory and Confirmatory analyses
The Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) is used that aimed to explore the pattern of the psychosocial problems experienced by the university students in the current outbreak of COVID-19
Summary
The recent pandemic of COVID-19 has threatened the whole world with fears, uncertainty with restricted social engagement to curtail the spread[1] This virus has changed our lifestyles, work patterns and home environment yet the world was unprepared and shocked to handle the unprecedented effects of the viral spread of COVID-192-4. Researchers have made a significant contribution to understand the impact of such pandemics like HIV and SARS on social, emotional, and economic functioning .5-6 This widespread COVID-19 is associated with many psychosocial and emotional consequences including fear, confusion, anger, boredom, financial problems, anxiety, posttraumatic stress, and depression[7-9]. Fear of death, feelings of boredom, loneliness, and anger are developing in people in quarantine situation as they lost face to face interaction and traditional social networking to handle such stressful events[10] Most of these problems are associated with disturbed sleep and poor health[11-12]. The most prominent reasons for these psychosocial issues are uncertainty, fear of death, and lack of accurate information in the general phobic[2,13]
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