Increases in Anxiety and Depression During COVID-19: A Large Longitudinal Study From China

Abstract

Although accumulating evidence suggests the COVID-19 pandemic is associated with costs in mental health, the development of students' mental health, including the change from their previous levels of depression and anxiety and the factors associated with this change, has not been well-studied. The present study investigates changes in students' anxiety and depression from before the pandemic to during the lockdown and identifies factors that are associated with these changes. 14,769 university students participated in a longitudinal study with two time points with a 6-month interval. Students completed the Anxiety and Depression subscales of the Symptom Checklist 90 (SCL-90) before the COVID-19 outbreak (October 2020, Time 1), and the Self-rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) and Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS) during the pandemic (April 2020, Time 2). The prevalence of anxiety and depression symptoms were 1.44 and 1.46% at Time 1, and 4.06 and 22.09% at Time 2, respectively, showing a 181.94% increase in anxiety and a 1413.01% increase in depression. Furthermore, the increases in anxiety and depression from pre-pandemic levels were associated with students' gender and the severity of the pandemic in the province where they resided. This study contributes to the gap in knowledge regarding changes in students' mental health in response to the pandemic and the role of local factors in these changes. Implications for gender and the Typhoon Eye effect are discussed.

Psychometric Properties of the Bangla Version of the Stress and Anxiety to Viral Epidemics-6 Items Scale Among the General Population in Bangladesh

“…Women, younger individuals, and the older adults are more vulnerable in this pandemic. In another comprehensive longitudinal study, Wu et al ( 12 ) reported increased anxiety and depressive symptoms among Chinese people.…”

Learning With a Double-Edged Sword? Beneficial and Detrimental Effects of Learning Tests—Taking a First Look at Linkages Among Tests, Later Learning Outcomes, Stress Perceptions, and Intelligence

“…Orlov et al (2021) similarly described that students performed, on average, worse during the pandemic than during previous semesters. Concerning students stress perceptions, the results are not that clear: Whereas some studies found that stress and anxiety perceptions generally increased (see, e.g., Limcaoco et al, 2020;Wu et al, 2021;, some work showed that academic stress first increased but then decreased to pre-COVID levels (see, e.g., Charles et al, 2021). Other studies even yielded that studying during COVID-19 had no effects on students' stress perceptions triggered by learning processes (see, e.g., de la Fuente et al, 2021).…”

Changing Social Mentality among University Students in the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Five-Wave Longitudinal Study in China

“…Furthermore, challenges regarding learning, interpersonal relations, and the future were different from those of the other groups. According to the literature [ 18 , 35 , 36 ], the reasons for the aforementioned changes in social mentality could be anxiety and insecurity caused by risk perception in disease outbreaks, loneliness, and helplessness elicited by isolation and social distancing, maladaptation to online learning, tremendous employment pressure in a disrupted job market, tension with families during home quarantine, the reopening of schools affecting students with fundamental psychological problems, and constantly receiving negative information about the pandemic.…”

“…A longitudinal study by Wu S.Z. et al focused on changes in students’ mental health in response to the pandemic and local factors’ role in these changes [ 18 ]. The results from the research above provided strong evidence for the knowledge of students’ mental health and the implementation of psychological interventions during the pandemic.…”