Fear of COVID-19, anxiety, and social support among college students

Abstract

Objective

The present study prospectively examined the association between fear of COVID-19 and anxiety and whether social support moderated this association among college students.

Participants

1,539 students from 11 universities in the United States completed two online surveys, one prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and one during the pandemic.

Methods

Hierarchical linear regressions assessed the impact of COVID-19 fears and social support on anxiety, after accounting for pre-pandemic anxiety and demographics.

Results

Results supported that adding fear of COVID-19 to the regression model resulted in a significant increase in variance explained over demographics and pre-pandemic anxiety. Social support did not moderate the association between fear of COVID-19 and anxiety.

Conclusion

These data underscore the mental health impact of COVID-19 on students and the urgency with which campus-wide initiatives are needed to support students during this unprecedented time.

Keywords:

• Anxiety
• college students
• COVID-19
• psychological distress
• social support

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author, [V.A.M.]. The data are not publicly available due to their containing information that could compromise the privacy of research participants.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of United States and received approval from the Institutional Review Board of East Carolina University.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grant #1823879. The findings and implications presented in this paper do not represent the official views of the NSF.