Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Mental Health of College Students: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

BackgroundThe coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has been spreading and brought unprecedented psychological pressure on people across the entire globe since December 2019.ObjectivesTo synthesize the existing evidence of the prevalence of mental health status during the epidemic and provide the basis for mental health education.Materials and methodsThe literature search was conducted in nine databases from December 2019 to October 2020. The risk of bias for each study was assessed, and the random-effects meta-analysis was used to estimate the prevalence of specific mental health problems. The review protocol was registered in PROSPERO with the registration number CRD42020208619.ResultsAbout 27 studies were included in the analysis with a total of 706,415 participants combined, and 14 mental health problems were gathered. Meta-analysis showed that the prevalence of depression was 39% (95% CI: 27–51%) and that of anxiety was 36% (95% CI: 26–46%). Subgroup analysis indicated that the prevalence of depression and anxiety varied among nations and due to the survey date. The prevalence of depression (60%, 95% CI: 46–74%) and anxiety (60%, 95% CI: 46–74%) in non-Chinese college students was higher than those in Chinese college students (26%, 95% CI: 21–30% and 20%, 95% CI: 14–26%). The proportion of depression (54%, 95% CI: 40–67%) and anxiety (37%, 95% CI: 26–48%) was higher after March 1 than before it (21%, 95% CI: 16–25% and 19%, 95% CI: 13–25%).ConclusionsThe meta-analysis results presented that the prevalence of depression (39%) or anxiety (36%) among college students greatly increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, the mental health of college students is affected by the nations and the survey date. It was necessary to take measures to reduce mental health risks during the pandemic.

Changes in Adolescents’ Psychosocial Functioning and Well-Being as a Consequence of Long-Term COVID-19 Restrictions

“…The increased stress level seems to be a constant result independent of the length of the restrictions. In our sample, in agreement with what was reported in Swedish [8], Canadian [23], and Swiss [24] samples, and in an international meta-analysis on college students [11], a significantly larger proportion of female students reported feeling more anxious, depressed, or sad, and sleeping more irregularly after the COVID breakout, compared to male adolescents. In our study population, there were almost twice as many female as male respondents, while other researchers worked with a more balanced gender distribution in their samples [8,23], and still reported worse mental health in females.…”

“…Focusing on five countries (Vietnam, Serbia, Sweden, Morocco, USA) across four continents, each representing a specific cultural and socioeconomical sample in our study population, our aim was to overcome the generic problem that most social and behavioral studies analyze data from a narrow sample [10]. Based on a meta-analysis of over 700,000 college students' responses to the COVID-19 pandemic [11], we hypothesized that adolescents' responses to how much COVID-19 impacted their lives will differ in participating countries; for instance, adolescents in low-income, developing countries are impacted more by the COVID-19 restrictions (e.g., lockdown and isolation). We also hypothesized that the majority of adolescents from our multinational sample would report increased stress, attention problems, and higher levels of depression and anxiety, and that female students would be affected more strongly.…”

Psychological Impacts of COVID-19 on Healthcare Trainees and Perceptions towards a Digital Wellbeing Support Package

“…This aligns with prior research identifying high stress, anxiety and depression in healthcare trainees, pre-pandemic (e.g., health professions: [48], medicine: [49][50][51], nursing: [52,53]. The COVID-19 pandemic is associated with high levels of psychological distress, globally [9,54,55], particularly in healthcare workers [56][57][58][59][60], younger populations [54,61,62] and student groups [4,[6][7][8][9][10]15,63], including healthcare trainees [5,13].…”

The Assessment of the Severity of COVID-19-Related Anxiety Symptoms in Participants of the University of the Third Age in Poland: A Cross-Sectional Study among Internet Survey Respondents

“…The estimated overall prevalence of anxiety in the general population during the COVID-19 pandemic is 25% [8]. In specific groups, the prevalence of fear of COVID-19 is varied, for example among medical students [9] and healthcare professionals [10] is also 25%, but among college students-36% [11].…”