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The DOI matches its Crossref record; 136 of the 136 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

The prevalence of depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms and sleep disturbance in higher education students during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Open access
Deng, Jiawen, Zhou, Fangwen, Hou, Wenteng, Silver, Zachary, Wong, Chi Yi, Chang, Oswin, Drakos, Anastasia, Zuo, Qi Kang, Huang, Emma·2021·Psychiatry Research

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic and its accompanying infection control measures introduced significant disruptions to the routines of many higher education students around the world. It also deprived them of in-person counselling services and social support. These changes have put students at a greater risk of developing mental illness. The objective of this review is to assess the prevalence of depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms and sleep disturbances in higher education students during the pandemic. A systematic search of English and Chinese databases was conducted current to January 1st, 2021. The quality of included studies was evaluated using a modified Newcastle-Ottawa scale. Prevalence of depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms and sleep disturbances were pooled using random-effects meta-analysis. Eighty-nine studies (n=1,441,828) were included. The pooled prevalence of depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and sleep disturbances was 34%, 32% and 33%, respectively. The prevalence values differ based on geographical regions, diagnostic criteria, education level, undergraduate year of study, financial situation, living arrangements and gender. Overall, the prevalence of depressive symptoms and anxiety symptoms synthesized in this study was higher compared to pre-pandemic prevalence in similar populations. Evidently, mental health screening and intervention should be a top priority for universities and colleges during the pandemic.

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Metadata

Authors
Deng, J., Zhou, F., Hou, W., Silver, Z., Wong, C. Y., Chang, O., Drakos, A., Zuo, Q. K., & Huang, E.
Venue
Psychiatry Research
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2021-07
Volume
301
Pages
113863
ISSN
0165-1781 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W3134399240
Cited by
474
References
136
FWCI
14.34
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
green

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: The prevalence of depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms and sleep disturbance in higher education students during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review and meta-analysis. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1016/j.psychres.2021.113863
The paper
Deng, J., Zhou, F., Hou, W., Silver, Z., Wong, C. Y., Chang, O., Drakos, A., Zuo, Q. K., & Huang, E. (2021). The prevalence of depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms and sleep disturbance in higher education students during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Psychiatry Research. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2021.113863

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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.