Limited negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health measures of Ghanaian university students

Abstract

Background Stress and mental health outcomes are negatively correlated among university students throughout the world. Reports of differences in stress perception by gender exist, but there is limited data on students from sub-Saharan African countries. This study describes the burden of perceived and financial stress; characterizes mood and degree of anxiety symptoms; examines stress coping mechanisms, including resilience and repetitive negative thinking (RNT); and explores how students at a Ghanaian university believed the COVID-19 pandemic affected these measures. Methods Students (n=129) were recruited from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana from October 2020 - January 2021. Validated surveys were used. Participants were asked “Are your answers to the questions affected by the COVID-19 pandemic?” Results No differences in mean scores were observed between genders. For female students, financial stress was positively associated with RNT (p = 0.009), negative mood (p = 0.002), and anxiety (p < 0.001). Males were more likely to report decreased stress during the pandemic (p = 0.002), but there was no difference in mental health outcomes by perceived stress (PS) change category among males. Effects of the pandemic on mental health outcomes were mixed, but substantial proportions of students reported improvements or no change in financial stress, mood, anxiety, and RNT. Limitations Students from one university particiapted in this cross-sectional survey. Conclusions This study adds to the understanding of how higher education students are experiencing stress and are coping with the uncertainties of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ghana.

Anxiety, Stress and the Resilience of University Students during the First Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Males were more resilient with a greater positive affect score. The same results concluded the study of Adjepong et al [ 33 ], in which female students demonstrated lower resilience scores and higher negative mood scores as well as they reported increased stress levels during the pandemic. This finding is consistent with previous work indicating that low resilience is associated with a decreased capability to deal with stress [ 34 ].…”

Emotional Eating among Ghanaian University Students: Associations with Physical and Mental Health Measures

“…Reasons for the discrepancy between the previous Ghanaian study and the current study are not immediately clear but might reflect differences due to COVID-19, as the present study collected data during this time period. However, Ghanaian students reported a lower incidence of increased stress due to the COVID-19 pandemic compared to students in many other countries, and the majority of respondents reported no change or reduced stress during the survey period based on our previous work [ 41 ]. Further work is needed to assess if differences in TFEQ scores truly exist among Ghanaian men and women.…”

“…While the UE and RE scores for this study are comparable to our previous work with a large multi-country student population, EE scores among the Ghanaian students in this study are approximately half of the larger population surveyed [ 45 ]. Explanations for why this might be are beyond the scope of this study; however, the majority of Ghanaian students experienced no change or reduced levels of stress and anxiety during the data collection period [ 41 ], and as we suggested earlier, EE may provide means to cope with high levels of stress. Therefore, relatively low stress levels could have reduced the likelihood that EE would be used to manage stress.…”

“…For better generalizability, sampling from other universities should be undertaken. Data were collected during the COVID-19 pandemic; however, we previously reported that the majority of students experienced no change or reduced levels of stress and anxiety [ 41 ]. As mentioned above, the reliability of the CR subscale is well below commonly used cut-offs for acceptability, which suggest this subscale of the TFEQ-18 might not be appropriate to use in the Ghanaian population.…”

Music listening as an emotion regulation strategy of students during COVID-19 lockdown

“…Most commonly, each of those emotions appeared to be increased, while more than half of the students were mentioned to experience feelings of anxiety, stress, worry, irritability, fear, and difficulty relaxing (Gadi et al, 2022). A quantitative study administered in China revealed that university students classified their perceived stress and anxiety levels as moderate (Adjepong et al, 2022). Increased levels of depression, anxiety, stress, and negative affect were found by Κornilaki (2022) on university students in Greece.…”