ArticleFrontiers in psychiatry2023
Two years COVID-19 pandemic: Development of university students' mental health 2020-2022.
Article in Frontiers in psychiatry, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 31 citations in OpenAlex.
- Instruments used to measure well-being, ill-being, and health-related lifestyle behaviors in students attending Italian universities: a systematic review.Frontiers in public health · 2026Pooled it
- Depressive Symptoms Among Higher Education Students in Germany-A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Public health reviews · 2024Pooled it
- Trajectories of internalizing problems during and after the COVID-19 pandemic: The effects of sex and early life stress.Journal of affective disorders · 2026Article
- Racial Discrimination and University Students' Mental Health: a Cross-Sectional Study.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2026Article
- Ethnobotanical Uses and Phytochemical, Pharmacological, Behavioral, and Toxicological Effects ofMolecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Attachment, Mate-Retention Strategies, and Intimate Partner Violence Victimisation: A Two-Wave Study in Brazil and the United Kingdom.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Disordered eating behaviors, food insecurity and the COVID-19 pandemic among undergraduate students in the United States: a systematic review.Journal of eating disorders · 2026Review
- Psychological distress and food neophobia: the mediating role of food choice motives among university students.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- Health Mode On and Health Mode On Plus: a multisite protocol to assess and promote mental wellbeing and healthy lifestyles among Italian university students.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Perceived loneliness, problematic pornography use, and psychological distress in Ecuadorian university students: a correlational path analysis.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Mental health and help-seeking behavior among at-risk university students in Germany: A descriptive analysis.PLOS mental health · 2026Article
- The dual-burden of professional and academic stress: a cross-sectional mapping of mental health status and coping efficacy among postgraduate students in Nairobi, Kenya.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Dimensionality, reliability, invariance, and item analysis of the depression, anxiety, and stress scale-21 (DASS-21) in Honduran and Colombian university students.BMC psychology · 2025Article
- "Loneliness is killing me?!": the subjective emotional experience of loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic: results of a cross-sectional study in patients with a psychiatric disorder.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2025Article
- Eating disorder debut cases during COVID-19 lockdown in adults. Exploring differences in treatment outcome contrasting with pre-pandemic onset cases.European eating disorders review : the journal of the Eating Disorders Association · 2025Article
- Supporting the transition to higher education: examination of state- and trait-level effects of a multicomponent positive psychological intervention for university students.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- No particularly negative impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the mental health of individuals with higher levels of childhood trauma.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
- Changes in Rates of Special Considerations in Higher Education Applications Pre- and During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Victoria, Australia.Early intervention in psychiatry · 2025Article
- The Road to Recovery: A Two-Year Longitudinal Analysis of Mental Health Among University Students During and After the COVID-19 Pandemic.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: The literature indicates a negative impact on the mental health of university students during the COVID-19 pandemic. It remains unclear if this negative impact persists even after lockdown measures are lifted. The current study therefore investigates the mental health status of students by drawing on two previous studies the present study seeks to investigate differences in the mental health status across three time points. Methods: A cross-sectional, anonymous online survey among students of six universities was conducted between April and May 2022 ( Results: More than one third of students exhibited clinically relevant symptoms of depression (35.5%), hazardous alcohol use (33.0-35.5% depending on gender) or anxiety disorder (31.1%). Taken together, almost two out of three (61.4%) students reported clinically relevant symptoms in at least one of the aforementioned symptom patterns, while almost one fifth of students reported suicidal ideation or thoughts of self-harm (19.6%). Higher perceived stress and loneliness significantly predicted higher levels of depressive symptoms, while resilience and social support were identified as protective factors. Compared to 2020 and 2021, levels of depressive symptoms were significantly reduced in 2022, levels of hazardous alcohol consumption showed a small but significant increase from 2021 to 2022. Worryingly, prevalence of suicidal ideation was the highest yet, being significantly higher than in 2020 (14.5%) and 2021 (16.5%). Conclusion: These results confirm previous results that the pandemic had and still has a negative impact on the mental health of university students. The present study broadens this view by the fact that some areas seem to recover quicker, while others seem to increase worryingly. Especially the persistent rise in suicidal ideation from 2020 to 2021 and to 2022, a constant reduction in reported social support and associated perceived loneliness is concerning. The claim for low-threshold and accessible mental health support for university students remains the same as in the beginning of the pandemic.
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