Positive effect of COVID pandemic on the depression, stress and insomnia among first-year university students

ABSTRACT

Literature data show that acute, severe, and also chronic stress play an important role in the development of somatic and mental disorders. It is well documented in the literature that starting university studies results in anxiety in many ways for individuals. In this present work, we examined how perceived stress affects the appearance of depression and sleep disorders among a special group: the first-year undergraduates. In February 2020, 134 students completed a 14-question Perceived Stress Scale questionarre. In addition, the 13-question Beck Depression Scale and the 8-question Athens Insomnia Scale were used as measures to assess their current mental health status. Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the extent to which anxiety and depressive symptoms changed had become a major issue worldwide. In June 2020, we repeated our previous measures in the given population with the same methods. Our research clearly proved higher perceived stress values among undergraduate students, which were associated with high depressive symptom parameters and insomnia. However, unexpectedly, questionnaires completed during the quarantine period of the COVID pandemic showed lower perceived stress, which was accompanied by a decrease in depressive symptoms and insomnia.

KEYWORDS:

• first-year university students
• mental health
• perceived stress
• insomnia
• depression
• COVID-19

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nóra Simon

Nóra Simon - the main author is a psychologist, earnt her MA at the Eötvös Loránd University, and currently serves as a master lecturer at the Faculty of Health Sciences of the University of Miskolc. She is the developer of the course contents and teacher of „Family care-crisis prevention”, „Mental health” and „Developmental psychology” at the curriculum of the health visitor training, referred as a unique system. As a mentor, she helps the students with their academic work in topics such as childbearing, family care, and mental health.

Emőke Kiss-Tóth

Emőke Kiss-Tóth MA, PhD, health visitor, sociologist, social politician. She obtained her PhD degree in the field of social psychology at the Eötvös Loránd University in 2004 with summa cum laude. She is a college professor and since 2013 she has been the Dean at the Faculty of Health Sciences of the University of Miskolc, the Head of the Department of Preventive Health Sciences. She has been teaching since 1989 at the Miskolc-based higher education in health sciences. In addition to education, she has been carrying out her continuous scientific activities in the field of health sciences and social sciences for more than 30 years, in the framework of which she monitors the development of the career socialization of students studying in the field of health sciences and analyzes the components of their career identity.

Bertalan Fodor

Bertalan Fodor MSc, PhD, HSc, MA Theol., EuSpLM, life coach and specialist of mental health promotion. He is Professor and Head of Institute, at the University of Miskolc, Faculty of Health Care, Institute of Health Promotion. Beside this, Dr. Fodor is the Director of the Department of Laboratory Medicine at Central University Teaching Hospital, Miskolc in Hungary. He graduated as microbiologist and teacher of biology and chemistry. He obtained his PhD degree in clinical immunology at the Medical School of Debrecen, University of Debrecen in 2003. His current field of reserch is the clinical laboratory medicine, nanomedicine as well mental health promotion.