Mental distress and well-being of university students amid COVID-19 pandemic: findings from an online integrative intervention for psychology trainees

Abstract

IntroductionUniversity students have been severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, as significant changes supervened their academic and social life. To tackle these challenges, several adjustments in the educational methods may be warranted for cultivating a positive environment at higher education institutions. The aim of this study was to investigate the risk and protective factors of students’ mental health and well-being as well as their potential for flourishing in an undergraduate clinical psychology course that took place online due to the COVID-19 restrictive measures and incorporated positive psychology exercises as a means to empower young people amid the adverse conditions of the lockdown.MethodsIn total, 124 students attended the course and completed mental health (i.e., DASS-9, HADS, ERQ) and well-being (i.e., MHC-SF, SWLS, PANAS, GQ-6, BRS) measures at two time points (pre-and-post-test), during the first restrictions in Greece (March–June 2020).ResultsAccording to the results, students aged 18–20 years old reported higher levels of stress [χ2 = 14.72, p = 0.002], while students who felt that the quality of their studies had deteriorated [χ2 = 6.57, p = 0.038] reported increased levels of anxiety. High levels of depression were correlated with worse relationships with significant others (z = 7.02, p = 0.030 and χ2 = 11.39, p = 0.003 for family and friends, respectively), while gratitude and resilience were positively correlated with improved relationships with others, both during and after the lockdown. Factors associated with students’ well-being were satisfaction with life and gratitude.DiscussionThese results suggest that well-being enhancement factors may have added value to current educational practices for promoting students’ mental health and well-being in times of crisis.

The Impact of Resilience Interventions on University Students’ Mental Health and Well-Being: A Systematic Review

“…The most common outcomes related to mental health were depression (n = 25) [ 88,90,91]. A range of measures was used for each of these constructs, summarised in Table 2.…”

“…A range of measures was used for each of these constructs, summarised in Table 2. The most common measures of depression were the Beck depression inventory [93] (BDI) [50,70,74,76], the patient health questionnaire [94] (PHQ)-4 or -9 [48,55,68,86,88], and the depression anxiety stress scales [95] (DASS) [51,52,57,[59][60][61]84,91]. The most common measures for anxiety were the generalised anxiety disorder assessment [96] (GAD-7) [48,62,63], state-trait anxiety inventory [97] (STAI) [50,76,89,90], and DASS [52,57,[59][60][61]84].…”

“…Eight studies implemented a non-randomised controlled trial (NRCT) study design [53,58,62,77,79,80,82,87]. Seventeen studies employed a pre-post without control group study design [48,50,51,59,60,[64][65][66][68][69][70]83,84,86,88,89,91], and twenty-two studies adopted a randomised controlled trial (RCT) study design [45][46][47]49,52,[54][55][56][57]61,63,67,[71][72][73][74][75][76]78,81,85,90].…”

“…Most of the studies recruited undergraduate students (n = 38) [45][46][47][49][50][51][53][54][55][56][57]59,[61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69]71,72,[74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81][82]84,85,87,88,90,91]. Only four studies recruited graduate students [48,58,69,83] and a subset did not specify, but all those not specifying focused on medical students [60,70,73,86,89]; as such, the level may not have been reported as medical degrees can include a typical undergraduate degree within the higher medical degree.…”

“…For mindfulness interventions, ten used face-to-face delivery [47,53,60,67,69,71,77,81,87,89] and eight used online delivery [49,[55][56][57]72,86,88,90]. Within the psychoeducation interventions, around half were delivered using face-to-face sessions (n = 5) [48,64,70,79,85] with the same number using online delivery [46,54,62,84,91]. Only one study used hybrid delivery, which incorporated face-to-face and online components [65].…”