Download This PaperMental Health Among College Students During the Epidemic of COVID-19 in China: A Comparison of Lockdown in 2019 and in 2022
24 Pages Posted: 4 Jun 2022
Abstract
Objective: This study aims to compare the anxiety levels among college students between COVID-19 initial outbreak in 2019 and outbreak in 2022.
Methods: We conducted a longitudinal comparison study with 7143 students who completed the initial survey between Feb 14th to 18th in 2019, and 4225 students who completed the second wave survey between April 18th to 25 th in 2022. The Chinese version of 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7) was used to screen symptom levels of anxiety. Data were analyzed with SPSS Version 26.0.
Results: Our results indicated that the levels of anxiety among colleges students between COVID-19 initial outbreak in 2019 (24.9%) and outbreak in 2022 (24.1%). Moreover, cognition and behavior of COVID-19 has a significant impact on the level of anxiety (p <0.05), and there were significant differences in cognition and behavior between the two epidemic periods (p <0.05), such as Knowledge of the COVID-19, Participate in the prevention and control, Mask wearing, Hand washing, Ventilation times per day, Living environment disinfection.
Conclusion: There are relatively stable levels of anxiety among colleges students between two timepoints. Compared with the 2019, the COVID-19 awareness level and behavior of prevention and control of college students have significantly improved, but the frequency of hand washing is not high.
Note:
Funding Information: This work was supported by the Project of Philosophy and Social Science Planning of Shanxi Province [grant numbers No. 2020YJ128] and a Special project for COVID-19 prevention and control in Changzhi Medical College [grant numbers No. 202003]. The later provided financial support for the conduct of the research in the collection of data, in the writing of the report, and in submitting the article for publication.
Declaration of Interests: None.
Ethics Approval Statement: This research was approved by Changzhi Medical college ethics committee, all participants provided informed consent.
Keywords: COVID-19, Mental health, anxiety, GAD-7, College students
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