Psychological Well-Being and Resilience of Slovenian Students During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Introduction Students’ mental health is recognised as an important public health issue, and the strict measures and many changes resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic may have exacerbated this. The aims of the study were thus to explore psychological well-being among university students in Slovenia during the beginning of the second lockdown, and to assess associations among their psychological well-being, demographic characteristics, presence of a chronic health condition, and resilience. Methods The Slovenian online cross-sectional survey was performed as part of a large-scale international survey led by the COVID-HL Consortium, between the 2nd and 23rd November 2020. The study was carried out on a sample of 3,468 university students (70% female) in Slovenia, aged between 18 to 40 (M=22/SD=3). In addition to sociodemographic data and that on the presence of a chronic health condition, data on subjective social status (SSS), psychological well-being (WHO-5) and resilience (CD-RISC 10) was also gathered. Results In our study 52% of university students reported good psychological well-being. Hierarchical binary logistic regression revealed that male, older students, those with higher perceived subjective social status, students without a chronic health condition, and those with higher score on resilience were more likely to have good psychological well-being. Resilience was the strongest predictor of psychological well-being in our study. Conclusions Systematic preventive approaches/interventions in the field of mental health should be implemented among students in Slovenia. In this context it is important to develop and deliver programmes for enhancing resilience, which is an important protective factor in times of mental distress.

Well-being of family physicians during COVID-19 pandemic in Slovenia

“…The need to follow instructions and rules that are perceived as inadequate, the lack of resources to meet patients' needs, excessive numbers of patients and poor personal relationships between staff, worn-out practice software were cited as the most serious stress factors [23,24]. The results of our study show that physicians with fewer years of work experience report poorer well-being, which has also been shown in other studies [25][26][27]. This finding is probably a consequence of the impact of work on the private and family life of physicians, in particular a conflict between the professional role and the role as a parent [23].…”

Functions of music, focused on the context of music listening, and psychological well-being in late adolescence regarding gender differences

“…Emotionally charged states are prevalent in young people going through adolescence ( Casey and Caudle, 2013 ) and stress is therefore a normal developmental phenomenon in that period ( Shankar and Park, 2016 ; Wang et al, 2019 ). However, Covid-19 pandemic brought up additional stressors that affected well-being of university students ( Dodd et al, 2021 ; Gestsdottir et al, 2021 ; Holm-Hadulla et al, 2021 ; Burns et al, 2022 ; Ebrahim et al, 2022 ; Liu et al, 2022 ; Ropret et al, 2023 ). The ability to control individuals’ emotions is in late adolescence still growing ( Beauchaine, 2015 ; Hannesdóttir and Ollendick, 2017 ).…”

“…Psychological well-being of university students has been widely explored in the recent years ( Ivić, 2017 ; Baik et al, 2019 ; Lattie et al, 2019 ; Liu et al, 2019 ; Konrad, 2020 ; Dodd et al, 2021 ; Habe et al, 2021 ; Kohls et al, 2021 ; Saddique et al, 2021 ; Villani et al, 2021 ; Yıldırım and Tanrıverdi, 2021 ; Ropret et al, 2023 ). According to studies from several nations, the well-being and mental health of students appear to be under pressure ( Backhaus et al, 2020 ; Dopmeijer, 2021 ).…”