Abstract
Aims: Increased mental health problems during the COVID-19 pandemic have become a major concern among young adults. Our aim was to understand which COVID-19-related questions predicted mental well-being during the outbreak.
Methods: Two cross-sectional datasets were used. The primary dataset was collected in May 2020 ( n = 1001), during the initial COVID-19 outbreak, and the secondary in April 2019 ( n = 10866), before the pandemic. Mental well-being was assessed with the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale. Relationships between mental well-being and COVID-19-related questions were investigated with lasso regression. As an exploratory analysis, two-way ANOVAs were used to compare mental well-being before and during the outbreak.
Results: Higher levels of mental well-being were associated with lower levels of academic stress and COVID-19-related worry, along with a higher satisfaction with the procedures and information provided by the higher education institutions and the government. COVID-19-related symptoms and infections did not have an impact on students’ mental well-being during the outbreak. Small to moderate effect sizes across the time points were detected, indicating an overall decrease in mental well-being across age and gender during the outbreak.
Conclusions: COVID-19 had an impact on higher education students’ mental well-being. Higher education institutes may play a crucial role in protecting their students’ well-being during uncertain times.
Keywords: COVID-19; Finland; Mental well-being; SWEMWBS; cross-sectional; first wave; higher education.
【저자키워드】 COVID-19, cross-sectional, Finland, First wave, mental well-being, SWEMWBS, higher education., 【초록키워드】 pandemic, Stress, COVID-19 pandemic, Infection, Adults, COVID-19 outbreak, outbreak, dataset, higher education, scale, information, First wave, moderate, Satisfaction, Government, Exploratory analysis, effect size, COVID-19-related symptoms, Mental, relationship, decrease, initial, two-way ANOVA, predicted, investigated, provided, was collected, were used, question, Increased, age and gender, COVID-19-related symptom, mental health problem, 【제목키워드】 Mental, Subjective,