Mental Health, Learning Behaviour and Perceived Fatigue Among University Students During the COVID-19 Outbreak: a Cross-sectional Multicentric Study in the UAE

Abstract

BackgroundThe rapid shift to online education due to COVID-19 quarantine challenged students’ ability to accept pure online learning without negative consequences for their physical, emotional and mental health. Some educational institutions introduced new strategies to reduce the psychosocial burden associated with online learning during home confinement. Thus, The primary aims were to determine the consequences of COVID-19 for the psychological well-being and fatigue levels of higher education students and to explore the effects of a new academic assessment approach in reducing home confinement stress.Method A cross-sectional online survey was conducted among students of 7 disciplines in all 16 higher colleges of technology in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The Mental Well-being and Learning Behaviours Scale and the modified Copenhagen Burnout Inventory were used to evaluate students’ psychological well-being and fatigue levels. A t-test and ANOVA were performed to determine the differences in perceived psychological well-being and fatigue associated with students’ characteristics. Second, multiple linear regression models performed to identify the independent predictors of fatigue level. ResultsOne thousand four hundred students participated. The majority were female (78.5%) and aged from 21-25 years (58.1%). Around 14% of respondents were married with children. Nearly 40% were satisfied with the new assessment approach introduced during the COVID pandemic and 45.5% perceived it as having reduced their home confinement stress. The mean psychological distress score of 3.00 (SD ± 0.71) indicates a moderate impact of COVID-19 on psychological well-being. Students’ psychological distress was positively correlated with fatigue level (0.256, p<0.001) and negatively correlated with the perceived impact of the new assessment approach on student lifestyle (-0.133), physical health (-0.149) and coping with stress (-0.125). Male students experienced significantly lower fatigue and better psychological well-being than female students.ConclusionThe study reveals that new assessment approaches which emerged during home confinement reduced students’ perception of stress and of impaired lifestyle. However, students still had a considerable burden of psychological distress, requiring further preventive measures to maintain their psychological well-being during future outbreak events. Educational institutions should consider additional strategies to improve students’ preparedness for online teaching, which could help maintain their psychological well-being.

Stronger association of perceived health with socio-economic inequality during COVID-19 pandemic than pre-pandemic era

“…The current study showed increased portion of bad/fair/ good perceived health in mental and social subdomains during the COVID-19 pandemic than pre-pandemic era (Table 2). For perceived mental health, our result is in concordance with other studies that demonstrated higher perceived stress [46][47][48], depressive symptoms [49][50][51], anxiety [49][50][51], and burnout [50] during the pandemic than pre-pandemic era. Elderly population with lower global cognitive function is exposed to the higher odds of suffer from perceived stress and depressive symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic [52].…”

“…Consequently, despite of the difficulties in activities of daily living (ADL) suffered from 18.4% of older adults living alone, inequality of providing ADL assistance during the pandemic has not been improved that much [55]. Perceived mental health is related to the perceived social health of loneliness [49,51], perceived social support [46] and, organizational support [50], and home confinement [47].…”

The lived experience of medical students during COVID-19 pandemic: the impact on lifestyle and mental wellbeing

“…They started to appreciate what they had in their lives and looked positively to the pandemic as it gave them the opportunity to think and reflect. These results are consistent with the findings of studies done with undergraduate students from other parts of the world (Alghamdi, 2021;Elsharkawy & Abdelaziz, 2021;Hamza, Ewing, Heath, & Goldstein, 2021;Mekonen Workneh, Ali, & Muluneh, 2021;Wang et al, 2021), which clearly demonstrates the consequences on the health and the wellbeing of medical students who were subjected such a forced lockdown (Abdul-Email et al, 2022;Alkureishi et al, 2022;Mosleh et al, 2022;Sekulic et al, 2022).…”

“…, 2020). Studies on students in the health fields from the Arab Gulf region (Abdul-E-mail, Alarbash-E-mail, Albati-E-mail, Alkhelaiwi-E-mail, & Alkhalifa-E-mail, 2022; Mosleh, Shudifat, Dalky, Almalik, & Alnajar, 2022) as well as from western countries (Alkureishi et al. , 2022; Sekulic et al.…”

“…Moreover, university students are at an increased risk of adverse mental health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic because of interventions requiring people to follow closures, lockdowns and social distancing (Mekonen, Workneh, Ali, & Muluneh, 2021;Salman et al, 2020). Studies on students in the health fields from the Arab Gulf region (Abdul-E-mail, Alarbash-E-mail, Albati-E-mail, Alkhelaiwi-E-mail, & Alkhalifa-E-mail, 2022; Mosleh, Shudifat, Dalky, Almalik, & Alnajar, 2022) as well as from western countries (Alkureishi et al, 2022;Sekulic et al, 2022) have indicated that the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown has had both short and long terms impacts on the social and health wellbeing of the students. It is therefore important to understand how the university students' lives may have been changed during the current COVID-19 pandemic and what coping mechanisms they have used to adapt to potential challenges.…”