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Depression and anxiety consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic: A longitudinal cohort study with university students

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2021

V. Conceição ,
I. Rothes ,
R. Gusmão  and
H. Barros
V. Conceição*
Affiliation:
Epidemiology Research Unit (epiunit), Institute of Public Health of the University of Porto, Porto, Portugal
I. Rothes
Affiliation:
Center For Psychology At University Of Porto, Portugal, Faculty of Psychology and Education Science, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal
R. Gusmão
Affiliation:
Epidemiology Research Unit (epiunit), Institute of Public Health of the University of Porto, Porto, Portugal
H. Barros
Affiliation:
Epidemiology Research Unit (epiunit), Institute of Public Health of the University of Porto, Porto, Portugal
*
*Corresponding author.

Abstract

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Introduction

For young people, just as in the general population, COVID-19 caused many changes in their lives. The literature review has shown an increased risk for mental illness symptoms as a consequence of the pandemic.

Objectives

With this study, we aimed to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 pandemic in university students’ anxiety and depression symptoms.

Methods

This study is part of a larger longitudinal research on university students’ mental health with the Portuguese version of The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) and the Portuguese version of the Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7) data with evaluations on January, May and October 2019 and June 2020, as well as socio-demographic information.

Results

341 university students (257 females and 84 males) were included in this study, with a mean age of 19.91 (SD=1.58). In June 2020, the mean for perceived well-being loss was 60.47% (SD=26.56) and 59.54% (SD=28.95) for mental health loss. In the PHQ-9, the proportion of students with scores equal or above 15 ranged between 22.6% and 25.5% in 2019, however, in June 2020, the proportion was significantly higher (37.0%). The proportion of GAD-7 scores above the cut-off 10 ranged between 46.0% and 47.8% in 2019, and, in 2020, 64.5% of the students scored 10 or above. Compared with preceding trends, PHQ-9 scores were 3.11 (CI=2.40-3.83) higher than expected, and GAD-7 scores were 3.56 (CI=2.75-5.37) higher.

Conclusions

COVID-19 had a negative impact on depressive and anxiety symptoms in university students, in line with the literature and confirming the vulnerability of young people in such uncertain times.

Keywords

COVID-19DepressionAnxietymental health
Type
Abstract
Information
European Psychiatry , Volume 64 , Special Issue S1: Abstracts of the 29th European Congress of Psychiatry , April 2021 , pp. S257
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the European Psychiatric Association
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