Students under lockdown: Comparisons of students’ social networks and mental health before and during the COVID-19 crisis in Switzerland

Abstract

<p>This study investigates students’ social networks and mental health before and at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020 in Switzerland, using longitudinal data collected since 2018. We analyze change on multiple dimensions of social networks(interaction, friendship, social support, co-studying) and mental health indicators (depression, anxiety, stress, loneliness) within two cohorts of Swiss undergraduatestudents experiencing the crisis (N=212), and make additional comparisons to an earlier cohort which did not experience the crisis (N=54). In within-person comparisons we find that interaction and co-studying networks had become sparser, and more students were studying alone. Furthermore, students’ levels of stress, anxiety, loneliness, and depressive symptoms got worse, compared to measures before the crisis. Stressors shifted from fears of missing out on social life to worries about health, family, friends, and their future. Exploratory analyses suggest that COVID-19 specific worries, isolation in social networks, lack of interaction and emotional support, and physical isolation were associated with negative mental health trajectories. Female students appeared to have worse mental health trajectories when controlling for different levels of social integration and COVID-19 related stressors. As universities and researchers discuss future strategies on how to combine on-site teaching with online courses, our results indicate the importance of considering social contacts in students’ mental health and offer starting points to identify and support students at higher risk of social isolation and negative psychological effects during the COVID-19 pandemic.</p>

COnVida-20(1)

“…So, it seems that the personally relevant stressors, linked to difficult and troubling academic and social experiences, were the ones that were most involved in students' psychological problems. These results are in line with pre-pandemic reports on the main concerns and stressors for university students (Beiter et al, 2015); the findings of the other studies conducted during the pandemic have also pointed to academic and relational worries as the main determinants of alterations in the mental health of students (Elmer et al, 2020).…”

“…Another recent study, looking at the initial psychological impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on a population of Spanish university students (77%), academic staff (13%), and administrative staff (9%), revealed significantly higher anxiety, depression and stress scores in the students than in the other two groups (Odriozola-González et al, 2020). Meanwhile, Elmer et al (2020) analyzed changes in social networks and mental health in a sample of Swiss undergraduate students during the COVID-19 crisis (two weeks after the lockdown) in relation to the two preceding years. They also analyzed individual and social factors associated with changes in mental health during the outbreak.…”

“…In brief, university students constitute a population which is particularly vulnerable in terms of mental health, one that even before the pandemic showed a high prevalence of mental disorders. Moreover, many universities suspended normal class-based teaching and moved online, with the result that the lives of students changed drastically (Elmer et al, 2020) and their psychosocial functioning was severely disrupted. It is within this situation, then, that we ask how students' psychological health might have been affected by the pandemic and the confinement.…”

“…With respect to these specific sources of stress, a study by Okruszek et al (2020) with Polish young adults found that the COVID-19 risk perception (e.g., contact risk, severe symptoms risk, financial problem risk) and the feeling of loneliness led to affective responses to the situation during the first two weeks of the crisis. However, it is also interesting to note that some individual stressors, such as work overload, strict schedules, Fears of Missing Out on social life (FoMO) or competition among students might in fact have been mitigated during the crisis situation for some students (Elmer et al, 2020).…”

Extraversion Moderates the Relationship Between the Stringency of COVID-19 Protective Measures and Depressive Symptoms

“…To date, however, the assumption that the social consequences of measure stringency are negative for extraverts and positive for introverts, remains largely untested. The first empirical tests based on data collected during the pandemic are inconclusive, with studies reporting negative ( Płomecka et al, 2020 ), positive ( Folk et al, 2020 ), or insignificant ( Elmer et al, 2020 ; Weinstein and Nguyen, 2020 ) associations between extraversion and mental illness. In this study, drawing on publicly available survey data from over 90,000 respondents across 47 countries ( Fetzer et al, 2020 ), we therefore empirically test the hypothesis that extraversion moderates the relationship between measure stringency and depressive symptoms.…”