ArticleBMC health services research2022
The COVID-19 pandemic's impact on mental health care use among Norwegian students in higher education: a nation-wide register-based pre-post cohort study.
Article in BMC health services research, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 9 citations in OpenAlex.
- Access and use of general and mental health services before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMJ open · 2025Pooled it
- Norwegian validation of the University Student Engagement Inventory.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Children and young people's consultation rates for psychosocial problems between 2016 and 2021 in the Netherlands.The European journal of general practice · 2024Article
- Relationship between Environmental Conditions and Utilisation of Community-Based Mental Health Care: A Comparative Study before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Italy.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2024Article
- The Impact of COVID-Related Restrictions on the Mental Health of Students.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2024Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic, and its associated social distancing measures, gave profound changes to the everyday and academic life of students in higher education. The current study is the first to use nation-wide data to evaluate the long-term effect of the pandemic and its countermeasures on university students' mental health care use.
methodsUsing nation-wide individual-level data, we studied mental health consultations in primary care (data available from January 2017 to February 2022) and dispensed prescription drugs used to treat anxiety, depression, and sleep disturbances (data available from October 2018 to February 2021) for first-year undergraduate university students. We compared changes over time in mental health care use in a pandemic cohort (12,501 first-year students enrolled in 2019) to the same change in a pre-pandemic cohort (25,990 first-year students enrolled in 2017 and 2018). Event study and difference-in-difference models allowed us to separate the impact of the pandemic, experienced by the pandemic cohort only, from secular and seasonal changes experienced by all cohorts.
resultsThe percentage of students with a mental health consultation temporarily decreased during the first period of strict social distancing measures in March 2020. At the end of the second round with strict measures in April 2021, the level of mental health consultations increased by 73% (95% CI 40-106.3). There was also a 42% (95% CI 5.7-79.5) increase in mental health consultations in November 2021. No similar increases were observed for dispensed prescription drugs between March 2020 and February 2021.
conclusionsThe COVID-19 pandemic was associated with increases in mental health consultations in primary care among students, especially during/after longer periods of strict social distancing measures. The benefits of social distancing measures in future pandemic preparedness should be weighed against the cost of potentially worsening mental health in vulnerable groups.
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