ArticleThe Australian and New Zealand journal of psychiatry2024
Data from four consecutive cohorts of students in Australia (2019-2022) show the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on domestic and international university students' mental health.
Article in The Australian and New Zealand journal of psychiatry, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 19 citations in OpenAlex.
- The use of artificial intelligence in psychotherapy: development of intelligent therapeutic systems.BMC psychology · 2025Trial
- Rethinking social media metrics: Daily interaction valence and well-being in university students.The British journal of social psychology · 2026Article
- The impact of COVID-19 on the trajectory of Australian tertiary students' mental health, 2017-2023.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2026Article
- Unequal burdens: a scoping review of key social determinants of health affecting wellbeing of international vs. domestic students.BMC public health · 2026Article
- University student mental health before and after implementation of a mental health strategy: a repeated cross-sectional study from Australia.Health promotion international · 2025Article
- The Impact of Choir Singing on International Students' Sense of Belonging, Loneliness, and Wellbeing: A Controlled Evaluation of UQ Voices.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Investigating the impact of COVID-19 on international student wellbeing in Australia.Health promotion journal of Australia : official journal of Australian Association of Health Promotion Professionals · 2025Article
- The academic adaptation of Southeast Asian international students in Chinese universities.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
14 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionCOVID-19 and related travel and social restrictions caused significant stress for university students in Australia and globally. Learning quickly moved online and many students (particularly international students) were separated from social and economic support. This study examined the impact of the pandemic from pre-pandemic (2019) to the COVID-19 Omicron wave (2022) on domestic and international students' mental health.
methodsParticipants were 1540 students (72% females, 28% international) in four first-year cohorts (2019, 2020, 2021, 2022). We screened for mental health concerns (% positive) and symptom scores for depression, anxiety and somatic distress using the PsyCheck, and general wellbeing using the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being scale.
resultsFrom pre-COVID (2019) to the first wave of COVID-19 (2020), the proportion of students screening positive for mental health problems rose in both domestic students (66-76%) and international students (46-67%). Depression symptoms and wellbeing were worse in 2020 than in 2019, 2021 and 2022. Anxiety symptoms increased from 2019 to 2020 and continued to rise in 2021 and 2022. Somatic symptoms did not show an effect of cohort. Contrary to expectations, domestic students reported higher distress and lower wellbeing than international students across cohorts.
conclusionThe pandemic was associated with a marked increase in psychological distress in first-year university students, not all of which settled with the easing of restrictions. Post-pandemic recovery in the Australian university sector must include university-wide access to mental health information and support for incoming students.
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