Camilleri, C., Fogle, C. S., O’Brien, K. G., and Sammut, S.
Published in Frontiers in Psychiatry, 25 January 2022
doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2021.801859
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Highlights
- A substantial proportion of the student sample reported severe and extremely severe levels of depression, anxiety and stress.
- A significant proportion of the students reported a deterioration in their mental health relative to pre-COVID-19-pandemic.
- The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and response appears to have induced PTSD levels (sufficient to be of clinical concern) in a substantial proportion of students, most especially the female population.
- External factors can potentially override protective coping mechanisms. In this case, the stress resulting from the efforts to supposedly mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic significantly overwhelmed the capacity of the specific positive coping mechanisms investigated in this study.
- The findings imply the necessity for health and other authorities, tasked with safeguarding public well-being, to avoid reactive interventions that do not appropriately balance the risks and benefits, potentially exacerbating pre-existing psychopathologies and compromising social order.
Background:
Mental health issues have continued to rise steadily, globally, including among university students and the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting response from the various authorities appears to have exacerbated the problem. Coping mechanisms have been proposed to mitigate the impact of significant stressors on mental health.
Goal of the Study:
The aim of this study was to investigate how coping mechanisms mediate the relationship between the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and mental health.
Results:
The findings of our study indicate:
- A substantial proportion of the student sample reported scores in the severe and extremely severe categories of the depression, anxiety and stress;
- ~50% of the sample reported perceiving a deterioration in their mental health relative to pre-COVID-19 pandemic;
- Measures further indicated an impact, associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, reflecting PTSD levels of clinical concern in a substantial proportion of students;
- A significant proportion of females (~15%) reported scores reflecting potential long-term PTSD-related implications.
- Students reported a greater concern pertaining to an interruption of life by the measures implemented, rather than concerns directly relating to the actual SARS-CoV-2 virus itself, including the potential for contracting it.
- The positive coping mechanisms investigated appeared have minimal influence on minimizing the negative mental health outcomes in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Conclusion:
- Given the extensive body of literature highlighting the negative consequences resulting primarily from the measures taken to purportedly mitigate the spread of COVID, the implications of the findings of this study go beyond the student population.
- Our study appears to highlight that positive internal/intrinsic practices utilized to combat stress and known to be protective or helpful in relation to mental wellbeing (such as positive coping mechanisms), may be insufficient/may fail in extremely traumatic situations (including those observed during the COVID pandemic – e.g. lockdowns, isolation, etc.). Thus, attention needs to be given to external factors outside the individual’s control, and the potential role that such factors may play in being sources of stress.
- Our findings appear to highlight the need for a more integrated approach that considers the broader well-being of society and avoids the potential significant detrimental ramifications of a reactionary myopic approach to events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, in order to truly and best serve the common good of humanity.
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