<p>Examining Anxiety, Life Satisfaction, General Health, Stress and Coping Styles During COVID-19 Pandemic in Polish Sample of University Students</p>

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the association of anxiety with self-rated general health, satisfaction with life, stress and coping strategies of university students during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak in Poland. Participants and Methods: A total of 914 university students, ranged in age between 18 and 40 years old (M = 23.04, SD = 2.60), participated in an online survey. The study was performed between 30 March and 30 April 2020, during the general coronavirus quarantine. Participants completed a standard psychological questionnaire, including General Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7), General Self-Rated Health (GSRH), Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), and Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS). Results: The majority of students (65%) showed mild to severe GAD and a high level of perceived stress (56%). Those students who had the worst evaluated current GSRH, in comparison to the situation before the COVID-19 outbreak, also demonstrated higher levels of anxiety, perceived stress, and emotion-oriented coping styles. The study indicates that the variance of anxiety during the COVID-19 outbreak may be explained for about 60% by such variables, like high stress, low general self-rated health, female gender, and frequent use of both emotion-oriented and task-oriented coping styles. Conclusion: University students experience extremely high stress and anxiety during quarantine period and they need professional help to cope with COVID-19 pandemic. The results of this study may help prepare appropriate future intervention and effective prevention programs at universities.

Does Physical Activity Matter for the Mental Health of University Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic?

“…The hypothesis that approximately one-third of the university student population suffered from various forms of depression and anxiety (from moderate to severe symptoms) was confirmed in this research regarding depression, but anxiety levels were lower than expected. The present result is consistent with the study of Feng et al [25] but differs from certain previous studies performed in the student population during the COVID-19 pandemic [18,20,21,28]. The prevalence of depression in the present study sample was 32%.…”

“…In comparison, between 23% [18] and 32% [25] of depression was reported among college and university students in China. General anxiety disorder was found in approximately 24% of Ukrainian university students, as compared to 4% [24], 28% [25] and 45% [18] among Chinese college students, 35% of Polish university students [20], and 56% in nursing students from Israel [28]. The mean anxiety score was 6.43 in the present sample of Ukrainian university students, while Jordanian students reported a mean anxiety score of 8.4 [21].…”

“…A review study indicated that, up to the time of its publishing, the prevalence of anxiety and depression ranged between 16-28% of the Chinese population during the COVID-19 pandemic [13]. Furthermore, it was found that women were at higher risk of coronavirus-related mental health disorders than men [16,[19][20][21][22][23]. Research also indicated that younger adults were at higher risk of anxiety, depression, and alcohol use than adults with an average age and above [6,9,10,19,22,23].…”

“…A growing body of literature has recently focused on examining mental health among undergraduates [18,20,21,[24][25][26][27][28][29]. Those studies suggest that university and college students experience higher rates of anxiety than it has been reported in other population groups [18,20,21,24,28]. However, a disparity in the prevalence of mental health disorders was also noted between particular studies, dependent on cross-cultural differences and the measurement methods used to assess anxiety and depression.…”

“…1. Based on previous research, we expected approximately one-third of university students to have suffered from various forms of depression and anxiety, experiencing moderate to severe symptoms [6,9,10,13,[16][17][18]20,21,25,52].…”