Pharmacy Students’ Mental Health and Resilience in COVID-19: An Assessment after One Year of Online Education

Abstract

COVID-19 has impacted mental health and affected education due to the shift to remote learning. The purpose of the current study was to assess the mental health of pharmacy students one year following the onset of the pandemic. A descriptive cross-sectional questionnaire was distributed to pharmacy students. The severity of depression, anxiety, and stress was assessed by the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21), and resilience was assessed by the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS). COVID-19-related economic, educational, and health stressors, and students’ vaccine attitudes were surveyed. Descriptive, bivariate, and multivariable analysis were used, and a p-value of <0.05 was considered significant. A total of 561 students participated; 37% had mild-to-moderate depression, 37% had severe-to-extremely-severe anxiety, and 52% demonstrated normal stress levels. Severe depression, anxiety, and stress were associated with smoking and feeling isolated due to COVID-19. Around 40% of students had low resilience, associated with smoking, being in the third or fourth year of pharmacy study, and the consumption of caffeinated beverages. The mean score of satisfaction with online learning was 60.3 ± 21.3%. Only 5% of participants were vaccinated, of which 87% trusted the benefits of vaccines and their role in controlling the pandemic. One year after the onset of COVID-19, depression, anxiety, stress, and low resilience were observed among pharmacy students; the investigation of the long-term mental effects of the pandemic on university students is warranted.

Attitude towards mental illness and seeking professional help among pharmacy students in Yemen

“…The results were compared with other studies that assessed the same. In this study, most participants were younger than 22 years and were females, consistent with other studies conducted in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon (Alsahali, 2021;Hammoudi et al, 2022).…”

“…The lack of accurate mental health awareness has been reported to be one of the leading factors that may contribute to categorizing people with mental illnesses (Girma & Tesfaye, 2011). Although several studies have assessed attitudes towards people with mental illness and knowledge about MIs (Alsahali, 2021;Hammoudi et al, 2022), data from Yemen are scarce. Therefore, the primary objective of this study was to assess pharmacy students' attitudes toward Mis, people with MIs, and seeking help for mental health.…”

Satisfaction with online education among students, faculty, and parents before and after the COVID-19 outbreak: Evidence from a meta-analysis

“…The prevalence of anxiety, depression, and stress was high among students in the online learning context after the pandemic. For instance, 70.7, 64, and 48.3% of pharmacy students reported mild-to-severe anxiety, depression, and stress levels in Lebanon (Hammoudi Halat et al, 2022 ) and 51.3% (anxiety), 29.4% (depression), and 56.5% (stress) of university students in Malaysia (Moy and Ng, 2021 ). However, regarding the prevalence of mental disorders among lecturers, only 15.7, 17.6, and 21.6% of them showed anxious, depressive, and/or stress-related symptoms (Miguel et al, 2021 ), which was much less than that of students.…”

Resilient Coping is More Important Than Previous Virtual Learning Experience: Predicting Pharmacy Student Stress During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“… 17 A survey of Lebanese pharmacy students found that self-reported stress and anxiety persisted at levels >30% one year after the transition to online learning. 18 …”