Mental health and coping strategies in graduate students in the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Objective: to verify the relation of depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms with coping strategies in graduate students in the context of the new coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). Method: an electronic cross-sectional and correlational survey was conducted with 331 Brazilian graduate students, aged 20-64 years old, who answered an online form containing a sociodemographic data questionnaire, a coping strategies scale, and the DASS-21 scale. Descriptive analysis, Mann-Whitney U or Kruskal-Wallis tests, and Spearman’s correlation were performed. Results: the main results indicated that maintaining work and study routines, as well as a religious practice, is correlated with lower scores of depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms, as well as with coping strategies that can act as protective factors. Conclusion: the new coronavirus pandemic has strained public health and increased the need for studies aimed at understanding the impact of the event on the mental health of the population. It is suggested that employment and religiousness should be considered in interventions with graduate students.

Psychological disorders and coping strategies among undergraduate medical students during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil

“…Additionally, a prior study with Chinese medical students showed that depression and anxiety negatively correlated with positive coping and positively correlated with negative coping 51 . As with medical students in our study, other studies in Brazil showed that undergraduate students from other courses 38 and graduate students 39 with depression, anxiety, and stress were also using more avoidance strategies. Interestingly, both Brazilian medical students and the Brazilian general population were using more avoidance coping strategies during the pandemic period 52 .…”

“…The pandemic context seems to contribute to an increase in the overall prevalence of depression and anxiety in undergraduate medical students 10 . Compared with the Brazilian general population 37 and with Brazilian undergraduate students from other courses 38,39 the medical students in this study had much higher prevalence rates of depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms.…”

Anxiety and functional impairment affects undergraduate psychology students’ learning in remote emergency teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Studies have demonstrated that anxiety impairs learning ability 39,40 . The difference between the learner's performance before (pre-test) and after (post-test) the teacher's intervention is a valuable measure of learning 41,42 .…”

Online group interventions for mental health promotion of college students: Integrative review

“…In the current context, the COVID‐19 pandemic has increased this group’s vulnerability to mental illness. Social isolation, abrupt interruption of academic activities, remote teaching, risk of death due to infection, and loss of friends and family may result in psychological suffering, promoting conditions such as reduced sleep quality, anxiety, depression, and stress, among other difficulties arising from the experience of this period of greater emotional mobilisation (Li et al, 2021; Patias et al, 2021; Scorsolini‐Comin et al, 2021).…”

“…anxiety, depression, and stress, among other difficulties arising from the experience of this period of greater emotional mobilisation (Li et al, 2021;Patias et al, 2021;Scorsolini-Comin et al, 2021).…”