{"id":59936,"date":"2021-10-21T03:50:48","date_gmt":"2021-10-21T07:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=59936"},"modified":"2021-10-21T03:50:48","modified_gmt":"2021-10-21T07:50:48","slug":"covid-has-increased-anxiety-and-depression-rates-among-university-students-and-they-were-already-higher-than-average","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/covid-has-increased-anxiety-and-depression-rates-among-university-students-and-they-were-already-higher-than-average\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID has increased anxiety and depression rates among university students. And they were already higher than average"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBefore COVID, university and vocational education students were at high risk of developing mental disorders, such as depression and anxiety. This is because they already\u00a0experience much higher levels<\/a>\u00a0of psychological distress than the general population.<\/p>\n

But since COVID, this group is even more at risk. Our study has found the percentage of university and vocational education students reporting extremely high levels of distress during the pandemic (23%) was higher than before the pandemic (19%).<\/p>\n

We also compared the percentage of Australian adults in the general population reporting extremely high levels of distress before (3%) and during (13%) COVID. In this population too, distress levels have increased significantly.<\/p>\n

So, overall, the percentage of tertiary students reporting extremely high levels of distress (23%) has remained much higher than for adults in the general population (13%).<\/p>\n

Women and international students among worst affected<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Pandemics\u00a0increase the amount of stressors<\/a>\u00a0people are subjected to for a number of reasons. In\u00a0university students<\/a>, these include health impacts associated with illness, worrying about becoming ill, being unable to work, having to study online and being separated from friends and family.<\/p>\n

Results of studies conducted in the\u00a0United States<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0China<\/a>\u00a0have also shown COVID has increased levels of distress and mental health problems in university students.<\/p>\n

In our yet-to-be-published study, we measured distress in 1,072 students enrolled in university and vocational education and training across Australia. We did this using an online survey consisting of demographic questions and the Kessler 10 Item Psychological Distress Scale (K10) \u2014 a global measure of distress and symptoms of depression and anxiety.<\/p>\n

The survey asks ten questions such as \u201cin the past four weeks, about how often did you feel hopeless?\u201d and \u201cin the past four weeks, about how often did you feel so restless you could not sit still?\u201d<\/p>\n

For each question, respondents have to signify whether this is \u201call of the time\u201d, \u201cmost of the time\u201d, \u201csome of the time\u201d, \u201ca little of the time\u201d or \u201cnone of the time\u201d.<\/p>\n

In part one of the study, we compared current levels of student distress to distress in students before the pandemic, also measured using the K10, and found current levels were higher.<\/p>\n

In our yet-to-be-published study, we measured distress in 1,072 students enrolled in university and vocational education and training across Australia. We did this using an online survey consisting of demographic questions and the Kessler 10 Item Psychological Distress Scale (K10) \u2014 a global measure of distress and symptoms of depression and anxiety.<\/p>\n

The survey asks ten questions such as \u201cin the past four weeks, about how often did you feel hopeless?\u201d and \u201cin the past four weeks, about how often did you feel so restless you could not sit still?\u201d<\/p>\n

For each question, respondents have to signify whether this is \u201call of the time\u201d, \u201cmost of the time\u201d, \u201csome of the time\u201d, \u201ca little of the time\u201d or \u201cnone of the time\u201d.<\/p>\n

In part one of the study, we compared current levels of student distress to distress in students before the pandemic, also measured using the K10, and found current levels were higher.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s what we know can help<\/strong><\/h4>\n

We recently conducted a review of studies (yet-to-be published) designed to promote mental health and stress resilience among university students. We found:<\/p>\n