Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic led to a shutdown of universities in Germany. In a longitudinal design, we compared mental health (depression, anxiety, somatic complaints) of university students in Germany before (June to August 2019) and in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic (June 2020) and determined the impact of pandemic-related stress and loneliness on students’ mental health in self-report online surveys. We investigated 443 participants (mean age 22.8 years), among them 77% female, and 10.4% medical students. A small increase of depression mean scores was observed (F(1,420) = 5.21; p = .023), anxiety and somatic complaints have not significantly changed. There was a medium increase in loneliness from pre-pandemic scores to the pandemic situation (F(1,423) = 30.56; p < .001). Analyzed with regression analyses, current loneliness and pre-pandemic distress represented the strongest associations with mental health during the pandemic. Additionally, health-related concerns during the pandemic were associated with symptoms of depression [b = 0.21; 95%CI(0.08; 0.34); t = 3.12; p = .002], anxiety [b = 0.07; 95%CI(0.01; 0.12); t = 2.50; p = .013], somatic complaints [b = 0.33; 95%CI(0.18; 0.47); t = 4.49; p < .001], and loneliness [b = 0.10; 95%CI(0.03; 0.17); t = 2.74; p = .006]. Social stress due to the pandemic situation was associated with loneliness [b = 0.38; 95%CI(0.32; 0.45); t = 11.75; p < .001]. The results imply that university students represent a risk group for psychosocial long-term ramifications of the pandemic.
Highlights
Since the infectious disease COVID-19 has been declared a pandemic in March 2020, many measures in order to contain the disease such as maintaining physical distance have been installed by political administrations all over the world
Similar numbers were published in an online survey among French university students: 43% suffered from depression and 39% from a nxiety[16]
The current study investigated the following questions: 1. What is the symptom load of depression, anxiety, and somatic complaints before and during the COVID-19 pandemic among university students in Germany?
Summary
Since the infectious disease COVID-19 has been declared a pandemic in March 2020, many measures in order to contain the disease such as maintaining physical distance have been installed by political administrations all over the world. Emerging evidence has pointed out a stress-related increase of levels of anxiety and depression, and of other symptoms of mental distress, underlining that the pandemic situation represents a stress event affecting people of all ages and different life s ituations[2]. In the specific case of university students, the closing of universities during the COVID-19 pandemic lead to an abrupt loss of personal contacts with peers and faculty, postponement of curricula, research, practical work, and exchange programs[14]. Recent studies indicated high levels of mental distress among university students at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic: in an online survey in the USA4, 48.1% of university students reported increased scores of depression, respectively 38.5% of anxiety. In a large online survey among Chinese college students (N = 89,588), 41.1% reported increased a nxiety[17]. While acute stress symptoms decreased, anxiety and depression increased[22]
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