scholarly journals Risk and protective factors of college students’ psychological well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic: emotional stability, mental health, and household resources

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Moeller ◽  
Luise von Keyserlingk ◽  
Marion Spengler ◽  
Hanna Gaspard ◽  
Hye Rin Lee ◽  
...  

Colleges and universities have increasingly worried in recent decades about college students’ wellbeing, with the COVID-19 pandemic aggravating these concerns. Our study provides empirical evidence of changes to undergraduate emotional sentiments and psychological wellbeing from before to after the onset of the pandemic. In addition, we explore whether certain risk factors (i.e., prior mental health impairments, trait emotional stability) and protective factors (i.e., subjective socioeconomic status, parental education, household resources) predicted students’ emotions and their intra-individual changes due to the pandemic onset. We compared experience sampling method data from 120 students from before and after the pandemic onset, examining intra-individual trajectories.There was only little change in students’ emotions. Prior mental health impairment and trait emotional stability predicted students’ emotions, averaged across time points, but not emotion changes. Few associations with emotions were found for subjective socioeconomic status and parental education, but study-related household-resources predicted levels and changes in emotions.

Author(s):  
Roberta Biolcati ◽  
Francesca Agostini ◽  
Giacomo Mancini

The aim of this work was to assess the therapeutic efficacy of analytical psychodrama groups for college students with psychological problems. Analytical psychodrama, as a form of group psychotherapy, is an integral part of the program of treatment of young adults in the Counselling Center of the University of Bologna, which provides a free service for its students, aimed at delivering psychological support. Thirty patients (22 females) from 20 to 26 years old (mean age 22.33, standard deviation±1.75), suffering from mental health problems, who completed one year of psychodrama, were assessed before and after group psychotherapy. The Italian validation of Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation – Outcome Measure was used as test-retest questionnaire for clinical outcome evaluation. The results demonstrated the efficacy of the treatment in terms of symptom decrease and improvement of patients’ well being. After the treatment (40 sessions, once a week), patients showed a statistically significant reduction in clinical outcomes scores compared with pre-treatment scores. Moreover, the analyses of Reliable and Clinical Significant Change index showed that about 30% of patients improved, and this improvement was reliable and/or clinically significant. Our preliminary findings revealed that analytical psychodrama is a suitable treatment for college students, as it actually reduces young adults’ symptoms. These results contribute to the topic of the validity of psychodrama interventions to encourage research regarding the specific psychotherapeutic effects of its method.


2021 ◽  
pp. 074171362110275
Author(s):  
Stephanie J. Babb ◽  
Katrina A. Rufino ◽  
Ruth M. Johnson

The current study sought to measure how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the mental health and well-being of college students, particularly nontraditional students. Participants ( n = 321) completed a series of surveys assessing their level of depression, anxiety, sleep disturbances, insomnia, and well-being. Participants also indicated their nontraditional student characteristics, level of resilience, and additional life stressors due to the pandemic. Statistical analyses found that participants reported higher levels of depression, anxiety, sleep disturbances, and insomnia, with corresponding lower levels of well-being across all students, compared with prepandemic levels. Results showed that while nontraditional students indicated an increased number of life stressors during the pandemic compared with their traditional peers, nontraditional students also demonstrated higher levels of resilience. Nontraditional students appear to be more successful at managing stressful life events due to the increased resilience that comes with age and experience, which can better prepare them to persevere and overcome challenges.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-41
Author(s):  
Katherine Carver ◽  
Hajar Ismail ◽  
Christopher Reed ◽  
Justin Hayes ◽  
Haifa Alsaif ◽  
...  

Anxiety disorders are prevalent among college students and contribute to problems in social and academic functioning. The primary focus in the anxiety literature has been on symptoms and deficits in functioning rather than psychological well-being. The present study investigated the extent to which high levels of anxiety co-occurred with self-reported psychological well-being using a dual-factor model of mental health approach. Participants (n = 100) were categorized into two groups (high anxiety crossed with low and high life satisfaction), and groups were compared on several psychological well-being indicators. Supporting a dual-factor approach, students reporting high levels of anxiety and life satisfaction reported higher levels of hope, grit, gratitude, self-focused positive rumination, and savoring of positive emotions than students reporting high levels of anxiety and low levels of life satisfaction. Groups did not differ in emotion-focused positive rumination or in dampening of positive emotion. These results highlight well-being heterogeneity within individuals reporting high levels of anxiety, with implications for treatment and prevention efforts.


Author(s):  
Karolina Baras ◽  
Luísa Soares ◽  
Carla Vale Lucas ◽  
Filipa Oliveira ◽  
Norberto Pinto Paulo ◽  
...  

Smartphones have become devices of choice for running studies on health and well-being, especially among young people. When entering college, students often face many challenges, such as adaptation to new situations, establish new interpersonal relationships, heavier workload and shorter deadlines, teamwork assignments and others. In this paper, the results of four studies examining students' well-being and mental health as well as student's perception of challenges and obstacles they face during their academic journey are presented. In addition, a mobile application that acts as a complement to a successful tutoring project implemented at the authors' University is proposed. The application allows students to keep their schedules and deadlines in one place while incorporating virtual tutor features. By using both, the events from the student's calendar and his or her mood indicators, the application sends notifications accordingly. These notifications encompass motivational phrases, time management guidelines, as well as relaxation tips.


2017 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Downs ◽  
Laura A. Boucher ◽  
Duncan G. Campbell ◽  
Anita Polyakov

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Z.F. Ma ◽  
N. Yusof ◽  
N. Hamid ◽  
R.M. Lawenko ◽  
W.M.Z. Wan Mohammad ◽  
...  

Individuals in a community who developed irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) after major floods have significant mental health impairment. We aimed to determine if Bifidobacterium infantis M-63 was effective in improving symptoms, psychology and quality of life measures in flood-affected individuals with IBS and if the improvement was mediated by gut microbiota changes. Design was non-randomised, open-label, controlled before-and-after. Of 53 participants, 20 with IBS were given B. infantis M-63 (1×109 cfu/sachet/day) for three months and 33 were controls. IBS symptom severity scale, hospital anxiety and depression scale, SF-36 Questionnaire, hydrogen breath testing for small intestinal bacterial overgrowth and stools for 16S rRNA metagenomic analysis were performed before and after intervention. 11 of 20 who were given probiotics (M-63) and 20 of 33 controls completed study as per-protocol. Mental well-being was improved with M-63 vs controls for full analysis (P=0.03) and per-protocol (P=0.01) populations. Within-group differences were observed for anxiety and bodily pain (both P=0.04) in the M-63 per-protocol population. Lower ratio of Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes was observed with M-63 vs controls (P=0.01) and the lower ratio was correlated with higher post-intervention mental score (P=0.04). B. infantis M-63 is probably effective in improving mental health of victims who developed IBS after floods and this is maybe due to restoration of microbial balance and the gut-brain axis. However, our conclusion must be interpreted within the context of limited sample size. The study was retrospectively registered on 12 October 2017 and the Trial Registration Number (TRN) was NCT03318614.


2013 ◽  
Vol 42 (5) ◽  
pp. 705-715 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tormod Bøe ◽  
Børge Sivertsen ◽  
Einar Heiervang ◽  
Robert Goodman ◽  
Astri J. Lundervold ◽  
...  

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