Mental health of undergraduates one year after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic: Findings from the national college health assessment III

Abstract

Objective

To compare the mental health of undergraduates before the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown to their mental health one year later.

Participants

Data from the American College Health Association (ACHA)’s National College Health Assessment III (ACHA-NCHAIII) were used, averaging a sample size of 54,844 undergraduate students and 106 schools nationwide per time point of assessment in the study.

Methods

Secondary analyses of the ACHA-NCHAIII compared undergraduates’ scores on five measures of mental health measures (loneliness, psychological distress, suicidality, flourishing, and resilience) from Spring 2020 to Spring 2021.

Results

Undergraduates’ responses showed an increase in loneliness, psychological distress, and suicidality as well as a decrease in flourishing and resilience.

Conclusions

The worsening of undergraduates’ mental health calls for greater action by schools to alleviate students’ distress and improve their wellbeing.

Keywords:

• Counseling
• Mental Health
• Undergraduate
• COVID-19 Pandemic
• National Data

Acknowledgments

We thank Eunji Shin for proofreading and feedback.

Declaration of interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.