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. 2023 Sep 15:337:50-56.
doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2023.05.076. Epub 2023 May 26.

Anxiety, depression, insomnia, and PTSD among college students after optimizing the COVID-19 response in China

Hongguang Chen  1 , Haolou Feng  2 , Yiyang Liu  1 , Shaoshuai Wu  2 , Hui Li  3 , Guowei Zhang  4 , Peiyue Yang  5 , Konglai Zhang  6
Affiliations

Anxiety, depression, insomnia, and PTSD among college students after optimizing the COVID-19 response in China

Hongguang Chen et al. J Affect Disord. .

Abstract

Background: The number of COVID-19 infections has increased sharply and quickly after optimizing the COVID-19 response in China. In the context of this population-size infection, college students' psychological response is yet to be understood.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was designed to investigate anxiety, depression, insomnia, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms among college students from December 31, 2022, to January 7, 2023. The questionnaire included the Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7 (GAD-7), Patient Health Questionnaire 9 (PHQ-9), Insomnia Severity Index (ISI), Impact of Event Scale (IES-R), and self-designed questionnaire.

Results: Of the 22,624 respondents, the self-reported prevalence of anxiety, depression, insomnia, PTSD, and any of the four psychological symptoms appeared as 12.7 %, 25.8 %, 11.6 %, 7.9 %, and 29.7 %, respectively. The self-reported COVID-19 infection rate was 80.2 %. Changes in the place for learning, longer time online, not recovering after infection, a higher proportion of family member infection, insufficient drug reserve, worry about sequela after infection, future studies, or employment contributed to a higher risk of anxiety/depression/insomnia symptoms or PTSD symptoms. Multinomial logistic regression showed that those who spent more extended time on the Internet, recovered after infection, and had insufficient drug reserves were less likely to have PTSD than anxiety/depression/insomnia symptoms.

Limitations: The study was a non-probability sampling survey.

Conclusions: Anxiety, depression, insomnia, and PTSD were common psychological symptoms among college students when infection went through a large-scale population. This study highlights the importance of continuing to care for the psychological symptoms of college students, especially timely responses to their concerns related to the epidemic situation and COVID-19 infection.

Keywords: COVID-19; College students; Correlate; Epidemiology; Psychological symptoms.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest None to disclose.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Gender-specific prevalence of anxiety, depression, insomnia and PTSD among 22,624 college students†. Note: “***”P < 0.001 after Wilcoxon Rank Test.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
COVID-19 infection-specific prevalence of anxiety, depression, insomnia and PTSD among 22,624 college students. Note: “***”P < 0.001 after Kruskal-Wallis Rank Test.
Supplemental Fig. 1
Supplemental Fig. 1
Prevalence of anxiety, depression, insomnia and PTSD among 22,624 college students.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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