Students supporting students: evaluating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on resident assistant mental health

Abstract

Objective

To examine the impact of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV2 (COVID-19) pandemic on Residents Assistants (RA) at a public university in the Midwest.

Participants

Sixty-seven RAs that had been offered an RA position for the ‘20-’21 academic year.

Methods

An online cross-sectional survey measuring socio-demographics, stress, and well-being was fielded. MANCOVA models evaluated the impact of COVID-19 on well-being of Current RAs and compared to the non-current RA groups.

Results

Sixty-seven RAs provided valid data. Overall, 47% of RAs had moderate-severe anxiety and 86.3% had moderate-high level of stress. Current RAs perceiving a great impact of COVID on life had significantly more stress, anxiety, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress than those who did not. RAs who started then quit experienced significantly higher secondary trauma compared to Current RAs.

Conclusions

Further research is needed to better understand the experiences and of RAs and to develop policies and programs to support RAs.

Keywords:

• college students
• COVID-19
• resident assistants
• stress
• well-being

Author contributions

AC contributed to the conception and design of the work, design of the survey, acquisition of data, analysis of open-ended survey questions, and drafting the manuscript, and was the principal investigator overseeing the study. RB contributed to the design of the work and design of the survey. HP contributed to the data analysis and drafting the quantitative methods and results. DS contributed to the data analysis and reviewing the quantitative methods and results. RA contributed to the conception and design of the work, drafting the manuscript, and was the mentor overseeing the project.

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States of America and received approval from the Institutional Review Board of the University of Iowa.

Additional information

Funding

This project is a product of a Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Research Centers supported by Cooperative Agreement Number (U48DP006389) from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The findings and conclusions in this presentation are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.