Real-time Mental Health Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on College Students: Ecological Momentary Assessment Study.

Evan M Kleiman,Jeremy L Grove,John K Kellerman,Joanne S Kim,April L Yeager

doi:10.2196/24815

Abstract

BackgroundCollege students’ mental health may be disproportionally affected by the COVID-19 pandemic because of the abrupt shift off campus and subsequent loss of a social network and potential long-term impact on job prospects.ObjectiveWe sought to assess the nature of COVID-19’s mental health impact among a sample of undergraduates who were experiencing the pandemic as it occurred in real time.MethodsIn total, 140 college students completed smartphone-based ecological momentary assessments of anxiety and optimism related to COVID-19 and other generic mental health variables 6 times daily.ResultsParticipants completed >23,750 surveys. Overall, >75% of these surveys indicated at least some level of anxiety about COVID-19. On average, the proportion of responses each day at the highest levels of anxiety about COVID-19 was 7 times greater than the proportion of responses at the highest levels of non–COVID-19–specific anxiety. Structural change analyses indicated a significant downward trend in COVID-19 anxiety after the first week of June, but even at the lowest point, >15% of the participants in the sample still reported high levels of COVID-19 anxiety each day. Participants felt more anxious about COVID-19 on days when the number of new cases and deaths due to COVID-19 were higher. When participants felt anxious about COVID-19, they also felt sad, anxious (in general), and had a greater desire to drink and use drugs. Participants felt more optimistic about COVID-19 when they received more support from others and from their university.ConclusionsThis study demonstrated the widespread mental health impact that COVID-19 has had on college students.

Highlights

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has had a large impact on mental health [1,2,3,4] among those on the front line combating the pandemic [5,6] and those who are staying at home due to social distancing mandates and have been displaced from routine activities and social contact
As COVID-19 anxiety was measured at a higher resolution than COVID-19 optimism, we primarily focused on anxiety for the descriptive analyses
We had three key goals: (1) to describe the variability of mental health variables related to COVID-19, (2) to identify which day-level factors coincided with anxiety and optimism about COVID-19, and (3) to identify the downstream consequences of the mental health impact of COVID-19

Summary

Introduction

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has had a large impact on mental health [1,2,3,4] among those on the front line combating the pandemic [5,6] and those who are staying at home due to social distancing mandates and have been displaced from routine activities and social contact (eg, young children [7] and older adults [8]). The economic downturn in the later phases of the pandemic influenced students’ ability to afford returning to campus (eg, if students’ on-campus jobs were eliminated), to obtain internships, and to procure stable employment after graduation. These impacts place a large mental health burden on college students. College students’ mental health may be disproportionally affected by the COVID-19 pandemic because of the abrupt shift off campus and subsequent loss of a social network and potential long-term impact on job prospects

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion