Bouncing back from COVID-19: The role of resilience in depression, substance use, and loneliness in college students amidst the pandemic

Abstract

Objective: To assess the influence of specific COVID-19 impacts on college student depression, loneliness, and alcohol and cannabis use, and to investigate if resilience moderates these relationships. Participants: Data were collected from students (N = 1849, 80.9% white, 66.6% female) at a midwestern university during the 2021 winter/spring semester. Methods: Data were gathered cross-sectionally through an online survey platform. COVID-19 impacts and resilience’s relationships with mental health variables were analyzed with multiple regression analysis. Moderation analyses were conducted using PROCESS. Results: The COVID-19 impacts measured in this study were significantly related to student depression and cannabis use. Resilience moderated the association between COVID-19 impacts and (a) depression and (b) cannabis use. Conclusion: Resilience may mitigate the effect of pandemic-related impacts on depression and cannabis use in college students, but not loneliness and alcohol use. These findings hold important implications for further research and practice.

Keywords:

• Alcohol
• cannabis
• COVID-19
• depression
• loneliness
• resilience

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the College of Arts and Sciences at Ferris State University for their financial support in the execution of this study, as well as the student body at Ferris State University for their participation.

Conflict of interest disclosure

The present study was supported by a student research grant from the College of Arts and Sciences at Ferris State University.

Funding

No funding was used to support this research and/or the preparation of the manuscript.

Data availability statement

The dataset collected and analyzed in this project can be accessed at this link: https://osf.io/qarj5/.