Mental health of student population during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

In 2019, the world public was confronted with the disease Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) for the first time, when the new Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was identified in the Chinese city of Wuhan. The pandemic of this viral infection has led to the biggest public health crisis at the global level in the last hundred years, while a special challenge has been set for professionals dealing with mental health protection. Students were also particularly affected due to the movement restriction measures caused by the closure of higher education institutions. The disease COVID-19 is a systemic disease with pronounced problems of a respiratory nature, and SARS-CoV-2 is a virus from the family of RNA viruses. The incubation period of the viral infection is between two and fourteen days, and transmission by aerosol, respiratory droplets, and direct contact is very easy and fast. The most common symptom of this disease is fever. The COVID-19 disease pandemic had a negative effect on the mental health of the student population around the world, and female students rated their mental health worse than male students. The main problems with mental health can be classified above all the increased levels of depression, anxiety, and stress in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Depression is more common in students who care more about their health, in female students, and those with a lower socio-economic status. Also, persons who were, at some point, in contact with infected persons, without knowing about their illness, have more serious depressive reactions compared to those who haven't had such contact. Regarding anxiety reactions, students at the beginning of their studies experience anxiety reactions more often and those reactions are more intense compared to students in the last years of studies. The student population also showed high levels of stress reactions, which occur more often in female students, as well as in those students who come from urban areas. However, mental health problems can be overcome if the student population is provided with some form of social support or peer or expert consultation, depending on how much their mental health is impaired. The aim of this paper is to present the mental health of the student population around the world based on a review of the literature on the COVID-19 disease pandemic and to offer recommendations to reduce and prevent such reactions.