Abstract
Objectives: To examine the prevalence of mental distress among university students in Jordan. Methods: An online cross-sectional study using a self-administered questionnaire was conducted between 12th of June and the 4th of August 2021 in Jordan to measure student mental stress using Self-Reporting Questionnaire-20 (SRQ-20). Results: A total of 1063 university students participated in the study. One-third of the participating students reported that they had a history of COVID-19 infection. More than half of the participating university students (65.7%) were found to have mental distress (measured symptomatically by the SRQ-20 with a score of eight or more). The average mental distress score was 9.8 (SD: 5.5) out of 20. Female students, students from non-medical colleges, students in their last years of study, students with chronic diseases and those with low income were associated with high levels of mental distress (p < 0.05). With regards to social support, a moderate level of social support was received from three sources: persons considered as significant others, family members, and friends. The average social support score for the participating university students was 41.9 (SD: 10.3) out of 60 (equivalent to 69.8%). Conclusions: Mental distress is prevalent among university students in Jordan. There is a need for evidence-based governmental strategies and interventions that provide social support at universities such as self-help measures and professional mental health services as part of student health services that would be helpful to reduce the burden of mental distress of students and promote the mission of the integration of mental health in all university policies.
Highlights
One of the main problems that affect societies is mental distress, which includes anxiety, depression, sleeping problems, and fatigue [1,2]
Xiong P. et al (2020), we found that students of non-medical colleges reported a higher prevalence of mental distress than medical students [44], and a higher level of distress was found among those who reported a history of chronic diseases, and, according to Louvardi, M. et al (2020) [45], a higher level of mental distress was experienced by low-income students (500 JD and below) and high-income students (1500 JD and above)
Social support efforts and programs should be intensified and directed towards highrisk populations, including females, students of non-medical colleges, students in their last years of study, those who have reported a history of chronic disease and those with a history of COVID-19 infection
Summary
One of the main problems that affect societies is mental distress, which includes anxiety, depression, sleeping problems (insomnia), and fatigue [1,2]. Different studies have emphasized that university students are considered to be at a higher risk (and higher level) of developing mental distress compared to the general public [1,2,3,4]. Studies in Australia have explored mental distress among medical students and found that there was a significantly higher incidence when compared to the general public [4,5]. Previous studies conducted in Saudi Arabia (at Jizan University) and in Tanzania (in Dar Es. Salaam) reported similar findings that 71.9% and 70.0% of the students have experienced mental distress, respectively [15,16]. A recent study was conducted in Germany on university students to examine their mental health problems and reported that 20.0% of them
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