CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 37

The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Italian University Students’ Mental Health: Changes across the Waves

Di Consiglio, Micaela, Merola, Sheila, Pascucci, Tiziana, Violani, Cristiano, Couyoumdjian, Alessandro·2021·International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
DOI 10.3390/ijerph18189897PMC PMC8469053
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

To reduce the spread of COVID-19, the Italian government imposed a rigid lockdown and, for a whole year, continued to declare stringent rules to curb the community spread. This study provides an overview of university students’ symptomatology and help-seeking behaviour before and during the pandemic. It aims to evaluate the impact of the different phases of the pandemic on students’ mental health. We collected data in four-time points between March 2019 and March 2021. A total of 454 students (F = 85; M = 15) were included in the study. Students answered a socio-demographic and a standardized questionnaire (i.e., SCL-90-R) to evaluate a broad range of symptomatology. The results suggest that students experienced moderate to severe levels of depressive, obsessive-compulsive and anxiety symptomatology. About 14% of the sample met the criteria for at least one mental health disorder, but most were not receiving mental health care. During the lockdown, compared with other phases, female students reported worse symptoms in the obsessive-compulsive, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, paranoid ideation, and psychoticism dimensions. The increasing symptomatology disappeared after the lifting of the lockdown. The results showed no difference in the male groups. Preventive and support strategies should be improved in the university context.

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.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.3390/ijerph18189897

Cites

20 of 20 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

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.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

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?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 24

  1. [5]Xiong J. Lipsitz O. Nasri F. Lui L.M. Gill H. Phan L. Chen-Li D. Iacobucci M. Ho R. Majeed A. Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on mental health in the general population: A systematic review J. Affect. Disord. 2020 277 55 64 10.1016/j.jad.2020.08.001 32799105 PMC7413844 · DOI · Paper page
  2. [6]Gualano M.R. Lo Moro G. Voglino G. Bert F. Siliquini R. Effects of COVID-19 lockdown on mental health and sleep disturbances in Italy Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020 17 4779 10.3390/ijerph17134779 32630821 PMC7369943 · DOI
  3. [12]Abbasi S. Ayoob T. Malik A. Memon S.I. Perceptions of students regarding E-learning during COVID-19 at a private medical college Pak. J. Med. Sci. 2020 36 S57 10.12669/pjms.36.COVID19-S4.2766 32582315 PMC7306963 · DOI
  4. [13]Aucejo E.M. French J. Araya M.P.U. Zafar B. The impact of COVID-19 on student experiences and expectations: Evidence from a survey J. Public Econ. 2020 191 104271 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104271 32873994 PMC7451187 · DOI
  5. [15]Husky M.M. Kovess-Masfety V. Swendsen J.D. Stress and anxiety among university students in France during COVID-19 mandatory confinement Compr. Psychiat. 2020 102 152191 10.1016/j.comppsych.2020.152191 32688023 PMC7354849 · DOI
  6. [18]Patsali M.E. Mousa D.P.V. Papadopoulou E.V. Papadopoulou K.K. Kaparounaki C.K. Diakogiannis I. Fountoulakis K.N. University students’ changes in mental health status and determinants of behavior during the COVID-19 lockdown in Greece Psychiat. Res. 2020 292 113298 10.1016/j.psychres.2020.113298 PMC7357537 32717710 · DOI
  7. [19]Wang C. Zhao H. The impact of COVID-19 on anxiety in Chinese university students Front. Psychol. 2020 11 1168 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01168 32574244 PMC7259378 · DOI · Paper page
  8. [21]Downs M.F. Eisenberg D. Help seeking and treatment use among suicidal college students J. Am. Coll. Health 2012 60 104 114 10.1080/07448481.2011.619611 22316407 · DOI
  9. [23]Pace D. Quinn L. Empirical support of the overlap between career and mental health counseling of university students J. Coll. Stud. Psychother. 2000 14 41 50 10.1300/J035v14n03_06 · DOI
  10. [24]Rickwood D.J. Deane F.P. Wilson C.J. When and how do young people seek professional help for mental health problems? Med. J. Australia 2007 187 S35 S39 10.5694/j.1326-5377.2007.tb01334.x 17908023 · DOI · Paper page
  11. [27]Cuijpers P. Auerbach R.P. Benjet C. Bruffaerts R. Ebert D. Karyotaki E. Kessler R.C. Introduction to the special issue: The who world mental health international college student (wmh-ics) initiative Int. J. Methods Psychiatr. Res. 2019 28 e1762 10.1002/mpr.1762 30623516 PMC6590379 · DOI
  12. [28]Li T.M. Leung C.S. Exploring student mental health and intention to use online counselling in Hong Kong during the COVID-19 pandemic Psychiatr. Clin. Neurosci. 2020 74 564 565 10.1111/pcn.13117 PMC7405056 32686896 · DOI
  13. [29]Di Consiglio M. Fabrizi G. Conversi D. La Torre G. Pascucci T. Lombardo C. Violani C. Couyoumdjian A. Effectiveness of NoiBene: A Web-based programme to promote psychological well-being and prevent psychological distress in university students Appl. Psychol. Heal. Well-Being 2021 13 317 340 10.1111/aphw.12251 33595198 · DOI
  14. [30]Banerjee D. Rai M. Social isolation in COVID-19: The impact of loneliness Int. J. Soc. Psychiatr. 2020 66 525 527 10.1177/0020764020922269 PMC7405628 32349580 · DOI
  15. [31]Killgore W.D. Cloonan S.A. Taylor E.C. Lucas D.A. Dailey N.S. Loneliness during the first half-year of COVID-19 Lockdowns Psychiatr. Res. 2020 294 113551 10.1016/j.psychres.2020.113551 33171416 · DOI
  16. [32]Del Valle M. Andrés M.L. Urquijo S. Yerro Avincetto M.M. López Morales H. Canet Juric L. Intolerance of uncertainty over COVID-19 pandemic and its effect on anxiety and depressive symptoms Rev. Interam. Psicol. 2020 54 e1335 10.30849/ripijp.v54i2.1335 · DOI
  17. [33]Akarsu B. Canbay Özdemir D. Ayhan Baser D. Aksoy H. Fidancı İ. Cankurtaran M. While studies on COVID-19 vaccine is ongoing, the public’s thoughts and attitudes to the future COVID-19 vaccine Int. J. Clin. Pract. 2021 75 e13891 10.1111/ijcp.13891 33278857 PMC7883065 · DOI
  18. [34]Moccia G. Carpinelli L. Savarese G. Borrelli A. Boccia G. Motta O. Capunzo M. De Caro F. Perception of Health, Mistrust, Anxiety, and Indecision in a Group of Italians Vaccinated against COVID-19 Vaccines 2021 9 612 10.3390/vaccines9060612 34200347 PMC8228609 · DOI
  19. [37]Cohen J. Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences Academic Press New York, NY, USA 2013
  20. [41]Nadler A. Help-seeking behavior as a coping resource Learned Resourcefulness: On Coping Skills, Self-Control, and Adaptive Behavior Rosenbaum M. Springer New York, NY, USA 1990 127 162
  21. [46]Kennedy B.L. Morris R.L. Pedley L.L. Schwab J.J. The ability of the Symptom Checklist SCL-90 to differentiate various anxiety and depressive disorders Psychiatr. Q. 2001 72 277 288 10.1023/A:1010357216925 11467161 · DOI
  22. [47]Goodwin R. Hou W.K. Sun S. Ben-Ezra M. Quarantine, distress and interpersonal relationships during COVID-19 Gen. Psychiatry 2020 33 e100385 10.1136/gpsych-2020-100385 PMC7580063 33163857 · DOI
  23. [48]Overall N.C. Chang V.T. Pietromonaco P.R. Low R.S. Henderson A.M. Partners’ attachment insecurity and stress predict poorer relationship functioning during COVID-19 quarantines Soc. Psychol. Personal. Sci. 2021 10.1177/1948550621992973 · DOI
  24. [51]Prowse R. Sherratt F. Abizaid A. Gabrys R.L. Hellemans K.G. Patterson Z.R. McQuaid R.J. Coping With the COVID-19 Pandemic: Examining Gender Differences in Stress and Mental Health Among University Students Front. Psychiatry 2021 12 439 10.3389/fpsyt.2021.650759 PMC8058407 33897499 · DOI

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Di Consiglio, M., Merola, S., Pascucci, T., Violani, C., & Couyoumdjian, A.
Affiliations
Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy
ORCID
Venue
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Publisher
MDPI AG
Published
2021-09-20
Volume
18
Issue
18
Pages
9897
ISSN
1660-4601
DOI
10.3390/ijerph18189897
PMC
PMC8469053
Cited by
37
References
20
Language
en
Licence
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (vor)

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