The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Italian University Students’ Mental Health: Changes across the Waves
Abstract
:1. Introduction
1.1. Mental Health among University Students
1.2. The Study: Aims and Scope
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Participants
2.2. Measures
2.3. Procedure
3. Statistical Analyses
4. Results
4.1. Preliminary Analyses
4.2. Symptomatology
4.3. Group Comparison
5. Discussion
5.1. Participant Characteristics
5.2. Symptomatology and Help-Seeking Behavior
5.3. Group Comparison
5.4. Limitations and Future Directions
6. Conclusions
Supplementary Materials
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Phase | Date | Decree |
---|---|---|
Quarantine Phase (March–May) | 9 March 2020 | National lockdown (at-home quarantine, closure of non-essential businesses, schools, and universities). |
4 May 2020 | People were allowed to visit their relatives. | |
18 May 2020 | Reopening of bars, restaurants, beauty centres and other commercial and non-essential businesses. | |
Second Phase (October–December) | 8 October 2020 | Mandatory use of masks. |
13 October 2020 | Limits on gatherings. | |
26 October 2020 | Closure of sports centres, cinemas, theatres, museums, and other public spaces and gathering places. | |
6 November 2020 | Imposition of nationwide night curfew and classification of regions into three areas—red, orange, and yellow—corresponding to three risk scenarios, for which specific restrictive measures were foreseen. | |
24–27 December 2020 | National red zone. | |
Third Phase (January–March) | 1–3 January 2021 | National red zone. |
5–6 January 2021 | National red zone. | |
7 January 2021 | Specific restrictive measures in every region based on the risk scenarios. |
Gender | Before COVID (n = 153) | Quarantine (n = 74) | Second Phase (n = 98) | Third Phase (n = 129) | Total (n = 454) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
F | 82.4% | 74.3% | 88.8% | 91.5% | 85.02% |
M | 17.6% | 25.7% | 11.2% | 8.5% | 14.98% |
Variable | M (SD) | 55 ≤ T < 65 (%) | T ≥ 65 (%) | Total (%) |
---|---|---|---|---|
SCL-90-R | ||||
Somatization | 48.84 (10.77) | 12.6 | 11.0 | 23.6 |
Obsessive-compulsive | 50.09 (11.39) | 17.6 | 14.5 | 32.5 |
Interpersonal sensitivity | 48.03 (9.94) | 16.5 | 7.3 | 23.8 |
Depression | 52.35 (12.27) | 16.7 | 18.5 | 35.2 |
Anxiety | 50.38 (10.72) | 17.0 | 11.7 | 28.6 |
Anger-hostility | 47.59 (8.65) | 13.0 | 4.8 | 17.8 |
Phobic anxiety | 50.14 (10.35) | 12.6 | 8.6 | 21.1 |
Paranoid ideation | 44.10 (8.47) | 8.1 | 3.7 | 11.9 |
Psychoticism | 49.95 (9.43) | 14.1 | 9.7 | 23.8 |
GSI | 49.66 (10.80) | 16.7 | 11.9 | 28.6 |
PSDI | 51.24 (9.77) | 21.6 | 11.2 | 32.8 |
PST | 48.18 (11.45) | 18.5 | 11.2 | 29.7 |
Groups | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Before COVID (n = 126) | Quarantine (n = 55) | Second Phase (n = 87) | Third Phase (n = 118) | F (df = 3) | p | Partial-η2 | |
SCL-90-R | |||||||
Somatization | 48.82 (10.89) | 51.44 (9.75) | 48.02 (11.22) | 48.29 (10.74) | 1.34 | 0.262 | 0.010 |
Obsessive-compulsive | 48.70 (11.62) | 53.74 (11.75) | 47.97 (10.01) | 49.31 (10.65) | 3.51 | 0.015 | 0.027 |
Interpersonal sensitivity | 47.10 (9.76) | 52.37 (11.55) | 46.64 (9.62) | 46.72 (8.86) | 5.11 | 0.002 | 0.038 |
Depression | 50.34 (12.59) | 57.01 (11.86) | 51.37 (11.84) | 51.37 (11.36) | 4.20 | 0.006 | 0.032 |
Anxiety | 49.49 (11.80) | 52.28 (10.73) | 49.07 (9.20) | 49.84 (9.42) | 1.21 | 0.305 | 0.001 |
Anger-hostility | 47.25 (8.72) | 49.67 (10.43) | 47.25 (8.19) | 47.24 (8.07) | 1.23 | 0.300 | 0.010 |
Phobic anxiety | 49.11 (9.53) | 52.29 (13.68) | 51.55 (11.49) | 48.84 (7.33) | 2.46 | 0.062 | 0.019 |
Paranoid ideation | 43.63 (8.88) | 46.91 (9.15) | 42.55 (6.79) | 42.86 (8.01) | 3.76 | 0.011 | 0.029 |
Psychoticism | 49.31 (9.87) | 53.05 (10.95) | 48.75 (7.89) | 48.20 (7.27) | 3.96 | 0.008 | 0.030 |
GSI | 48.49 (11.65) | 53.45 (10.58) | 48.21 (9.88) | 48.46 (9.53) | 3.65 | 0.013 | 0.028 |
PSDI | 46.46 (11.98) | 52.56 (10.11) | 46.89 (10.54) | 46.94 (10.76) | 2.20 | 0.088 | 0.017 |
PST | 50.22 (10.20) | 54.01 (9.45) | 50.28 (10.11) | 50.86 (8.95) | 4.41 | 0.005 | 0.033 |
Before COVID (n = 27) | Quarantine (n = 19) | Second Phase (n = 11) | Third Phase (n = 11) | Kruskal–Wallis | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
M (SD) | Mean Rank | M (SD) | Mean Rank | M (SD) | Mean Rank | M (SD) | Mean Rank | X2 (df = 3) | p Values | η2 | |
SCL-90-R | |||||||||||
Somatization | 48.98 (10.91) | 34.96 | 44.69 (6.19) | 28.11 | 52.91 (19.69) | 41.73 | 51.09 (11.23) | 37.18 | 3.70 | 0.296 | 0.011 |
Obsessive-compulsive | 52.07 (13.46) | 30.96 | 50.69 (10.80) | 29.76 | 56.82 (10.76) | 40.55 | 60.45 (11.61) | 45.32 | 6.29 | 0.098 | 0.051 |
Interpersonal sensitivity | 51.33 (12.01) | 35.02 | 48.89 (9.26) | 31.71 | 48.55 (8.39) | 32.14 | 51.73 (7.17) | 40.41 | 1.54 | 0.672 | 0.023 |
Depression | 54.11 (13.59) | 32.72 | 53.13 (12.14) | 31.18 | 55.55 (10.90) | 35.50 | 61.27 (13.94) | 43.59 | 3.11 | 0.374 | 0.002 |
Anxiety | 52.52 (12.92) | 31.94 | 49.66 (7.06) | 31.45 | 52.82 (13.70) | 33.36 | 60.82 (13.17) | 47.18 | 5.50 | 0.139 | 0.040 |
Anger-hostility | 47.22 (7.93) | 33.89 | 47.92 (10.16) | 34.21 | 45.09 (6.19) | 28.68 | 50.36 (8.96) | 42.32 | 2.73 | 0.434 | 0.004 |
Phobic anxiety | 49.80 (11.31) | 30.78 | 48.77 (7.92) | 33.26 | 51.36 (9.07) | 36.95 | 55.91 (17.10) | 43.32 | 3.71 | 0.294 | 0.011 |
Paranoid ideation | 48.72 (9.90) | 38.07 | 44.08 (7.30) | 28.53 | 43.55 (8.50) | 26.55 | 50.09 (7.82) | 44.00 | 7.01 | 0.072 | 0.063 |
Psychoticism | 52.85 (12.82) | 32.81 | 51.92 (8.35) | 33.87 | 54.27 (14.43) | 34.50 | 55.09 (9.18) | 39.73 | 0.99 | 0.803 | 0.031 |
GSI | 52.63 (13.57) | 33.04 | 49.44 (8.59) | 30.24 | 53.18 (11.38) | 35.36 | 57.82 (9.57) | 44.59 | 3.92 | 0.270 | 0.014 |
PSDI | 51.61 (11.01) | 30.83 | 48.38 (10.84) | 34.39 | 50.77 (11.36) | 39.77 | 58.05 (10.26) | 38.41 | 2.14 | 0.543 | 0.013 |
PST | 51.24 (11.28) | 33.50 | 52.81 (8.71) | 29.89 | 55.27 (10.60) | 33.77 | 54.05 (7.11) | 45.64 | 4.61 | 0.203 | 0.025 |
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Di Consiglio, M.; Merola, S.; Pascucci, T.; Violani, C.; Couyoumdjian, A. The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Italian University Students’ Mental Health: Changes across the Waves. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18, 9897. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18189897
Di Consiglio M, Merola S, Pascucci T, Violani C, Couyoumdjian A. The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Italian University Students’ Mental Health: Changes across the Waves. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2021; 18(18):9897. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18189897
Chicago/Turabian StyleDi Consiglio, Micaela, Sheila Merola, Tiziana Pascucci, Cristiano Violani, and Alessandro Couyoumdjian. 2021. "The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Italian University Students’ Mental Health: Changes across the Waves" International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 18, no. 18: 9897. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18189897