Prevalence of and factors associated with post-traumatic stress disorder among French university students 1 month after the COVID-19 lockdown
Open accessAbstract
The COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine measures have sparked debate regarding their traumatic nature. This cross-sectional study reports the prevalence rate of probable post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) and associated factors among French university students. A total of 22,883 students completed the online questionnaire. The prevalence rate of probable PTSD, assessed using the PTSD Checklist for DSM-5, was 19.5% [19.0–20.0]. Female (1.32 [1.21–1.45]) or non-binary gender (1.76 [1.35–2.31]), exposure to a non-COVID-19-related traumatic event (3.37 [3.08–3.67]), having lived through quarantine alone (1.22 [1.09–1.37]), poor quality of social ties (2.38 [2.15–2.62]), loss of income (1.20 [1.09–1.31]), poor quality housing (1.90 [1.59–2.26]), low-quality of the information received (1.50 [1.35–1.66]) and a high level of exposure to COVID-19 (from 1.38 [1.24–1.54] to 10.82 [2.33–76.57] depending on the score) were associated with PTSD. Quarantine was considered potentially traumatic by 78.8% of the students with probable PTSD. These findings suggest the pandemic context and lockdown measures could have post-traumatic consequences, stimulating debate on the nosography of PTSD.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The two French studies by Wathelet and colleagues found that living under quarantine was associated with high rates of mental health problems and probable PTSD among students.
“the current study extends on the two French studies by Wathelet and colleagues, who found living under quarantine was associated with high rates if mental health problems and probable PTSD among students.”
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
No citation lists for this paper
No citation lists for this paper yet — checked again daily.
References 31 · Cited by 50
Research works printed but not linked: 22
- [1]Brooks SK The psychological impact of quarantine and how to reduce it: rapid review of the evidence Lancet 2020 395 912 920 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30460-8 32112714 PMC7158942 · DOI · Paper page
- [2]American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5®). 10.1176/appi.books.9780890425596 (2013). · DOI · Paper page
- [3]Shevlin M Hyland P Karatzias T Is posttraumatic stress disorder meaningful in the context of the COVID‐19 pandemic? a response to Van Overmeire’s commentary on Karatzias et al. J. Trauma. Stress 2020 33 866 868 10.1002/jts.22592 33007141 PMC7675262 · DOI
- [6]Wathelet, M. et al. Factors associated with mental health disorders among university students in France confined during the COVID-19 pandemic. JAMA Netw. Open3, e2025591 (2020). PMC7584927 33095252
- [7]Wang, C. et al. Immediate psychological responses and associated factors during the initial stage of the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) epidemic among the general population in China. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health17, 1729 (2020). PMC7084952 32155789
- [9]Tang W Prevalence and correlates of PTSD and depressive symptoms one month after the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic in a sample of home-quarantined Chinese university students J. Affect. Disord. 2020 274 1 7 10.1016/j.jad.2020.05.009 32405111 PMC7217769 · DOI · Paper page
- [11]Weathers FW Ruscio AM Keane TM Psychometric properties of nine scoring rules for the clinician- administered posttraumatic stress disorder scale Psychol. Assess. 1999 11 124 133 10.1037/1040-3590.11.2.124 · DOI · Paper page
- [12]Blevins CA Weathers FW Davis MT Witte TK Domino JL The posttraumatic stress disorder checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5): development and initial psychometric evaluation J. Trauma. Stress 2015 28 489 498 10.1002/jts.22059 26606250 · DOI · Paper page
- [13]Hoge CW Riviere LA Wilk JE Herrell RK Weathers FW The prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in US combat soldiers: a head-to-head comparison of DSM-5 versus DSM-IV-TR symptom criteria with the PTSD checklist Lancet Psychiatry 2014 1 269 277 10.1016/S2215-0366(14)70235-4 26360860 · DOI
- [14]Ashbaugh, A. R., Houle-Johnson, S., Herbert, C., El-Hage, W. & Brunet, A. Psychometric validation of the English and French versions of the posttraumatic stress disorder checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5). PLoS One11, e0161645 (2016). PMC5056703 27723815
- [15]Liu D Risk factors associated with mental illness in hospital discharged patients infected with COVID-19 in Wuhan, China Psychiatry Res. 2020 292 113297 10.1016/j.psychres.2020.113297 32707218 PMC7355324 · DOI
- [16]Brewin CR Andrews B Valentine JD Meta-analysis of risk factors for posttraumatic stress disorder in trauma-exposed adults J. Consult. Clin. Psychol. 2000 68 748 766 10.1037/0022-006X.68.5.748 11068961 · DOI · Paper page
- [18]Brunet A St-Hilaire A Jehel L King S Validation of a french version of the impact of event scale-revised Can. J. Psychiatry 2003 48 56 61 10.1177/070674370304800111 12635566 · DOI
- [19]Vaiva G Prévalence des troubles psychotraumatiques en France métropolitaine Encephale 2008 34 577 583 10.1016/j.encep.2007.11.006 19081454 · DOI
- [20]Liang L Post-traumatic stress disorder and psychological distress in Chinese youths following the COVID-19 emergency J. Health Psychol. 2020 25 1164 1175 10.1177/1359105320937057 32627606 PMC7342938 · DOI
- [22]Liu, N. et al. Prevalence and predictors of PTSS during COVID-19 outbreak in China hardest-hit areas: gender differences matter. Psychiatry Res. 287, 112921 (2020). PMC7102622 32240896
- [24]Berthelot N Uptrend in distress and psychiatric symptomatology in pregnant women during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic Acta Obstet. Gynecol. Scand. 2020 99 848 855 10.1111/aogs.13925 32449178 · DOI
- [25]Horn, M. et al. Is COVID-19 associated with posttraumatic stress disorder? J. Clin. Psychiatry82, 20m13641 (2020). 33296149
- [26]Brunet A Peritraumatic distress but not dissociation predicts posttraumatic stress disorder in the elderly Int. Psychogeriatr. 2013 25 1007 1012 10.1017/S1041610213000069 23433477 · DOI
- [27]Gulati G Kelly BD Domestic violence against women and the COVID-19 pandemic: what is the role of psychiatry? Int. J. Law Psychiatry 2020 71 101594 10.1016/j.ijlp.2020.101594 32768101 PMC7264022 · DOI
- [29]Galea S Tracy M Participation rates in epidemiologic studies Ann. Epidemiol. 2007 17 643 653 10.1016/j.annepidem.2007.03.013 17553702 · DOI · Paper page
- [30]Søgaard, A. J., Selmer, R., Bjertness, E. & Thelle, D. The Oslo Health Study: the impact of self-selection in a large, population-based survey. Int. J. Equity Health3, 3 (2004). PMC428581 15128460
- Authors
- Wathelet, M., Fovet, T., Jousset, A., Duhem, S., Habran, E., Horn, M., Debien, C., Notredame, C.-E., Baubet, T., Vaiva, G., & D’Hondt, F.
- Affiliations
- Inserm (FR)
- Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Lille (FR)
- Fédération Hospitalière de France (FR)
- Université Sorbonne Paris Nord (FR)
- Corresponding author
- D’Hondt, Fabien
- Venue
- Translational Psychiatry
- Published
- 2021-05-27
- Volume
- 11
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 327-327
- ISSN
- 2158-3188 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC8157529
- OpenAlex
- W3164975332
- Cited by
- 50
- References
- 31
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 21 · 2021: 4
- FWCI
- 7.50
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Translational Psychiatry (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- HAL (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- HAL (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- LillOA (Université de Lille (University Of Lille)) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › COVID-19 and Mental Health
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Neurology › Long-Term Effects of COVID-19
- Keywords
- post-traumatic stress disorder, COVID-19 lockdown, quarantine, university students, PTSD prevalence, risk factors, gender differences, social ties, housing quality, income loss, information quality
- MeSH terms
- COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Communicable Disease Control, Cross-Sectional Studies, Female, Humans, Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic, Students, Universities, Prevalence, Pandemics
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
