Original title: Psychological impacts from COVID-19 among university students: Risk factors across seven states in the United States
Researchers surveyed students at seven U.S. universities during the early COVID-19 restrictions. They grouped answers about psychological effects into high, moderate, and low impact profiles. Nearly half of the students were in the high-impact group. In a model that considered several factors at once, higher impact was linked with being a woman, being 18 to 24, having fair or poor health, spending at least eight hours a day on screens, and knowing someone infected.
Imagine a school trying to work out which students are struggling during a sudden change in routine. Some report a few difficulties, while others report many, and the school wants to see whether certain circumstances tend to go with greater difficulty. In this paper, students' reported psychological effects are grouped into levels, and researchers check which student circumstances are linked with the high-impact group.
Students facing poor health, long screen time, or a personal connection to someone infected were more likely to report high psychological impact. Knowing which groups were more affected can help universities notice students who may need support during a crisis.
The study collected questionnaire responses during a specific period in early 2020, so it does not show how students' mental health changed over time. Its associations do not establish that the listed factors caused psychological impact. The findings come from students at seven U.S. universities and may not apply to all students.
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Psychological impacts from COVID-19 among university students: Risk factors across seven states in the United States — Matthew H. E. M. Browning, Lincoln R. Larson, Iryna Sharaievska et al. — PLoS ONE — doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0245327
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.