Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Jul 23, 2020
Date Accepted: Sep 7, 2020
Date Submitted to PubMed: Sep 8, 2020
Investigating College Students’ Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Online Survey Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
Evidence suggest that COVID-19 pandemic has caused increased levels of stress and depression among the public. However, the impact on college students in United States has not been documented.
Objective:
This article reports findings of an online survey regarding mental health conditions of college students in a large university in the United States during COVID-19.
Methods:
An online survey was conducted among participants recruited from a large university system in Texas, United States, to assess the mental health of students during the pandemic. The survey mainly consists of two standardized scales for depression and anxiety, as well as questions regarding stressors and coping mechanisms specific to the COVID-19.
Results:
Among the 2031 participants, 80.57% showed some moderate to severe level of depression, 71.75% showed mild to severe level of anxiety, and 18.04% of participants had suicidal thoughts. A majority of participants (71.26%) indicated that their stress/anxiety levels had increased during the pandemic. Less than half (43.25%) of the participants indicated that they were able to cope adequately with the stress related to the current situation.
Conclusions:
The proportion of respondents showing depression, anxiety and/or suicidal thoughts is alarming. Respondents reported academic, health, and lifestyle-related concerns caused by the pandemic. Given the unexpected length and severity of the pandemic, these concerns need to be further understood and addressed.
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.