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Loneliness and its associated factors among university students during late stage of COVID-19 pandemic: An online cross-sectional study
BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a number of psychosocial and emotional catastrophes, including loneliness. The associated lockdowns, reduced social support, and insufficiently perceived interactions are expected to heighten the level of loneliness during the pandemic. However, there is...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10325105/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37410760 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287365 |
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author | Simegn, Wudneh Sisay, Gashaw Seid, Abdulwase Mohammed Dagne, Henok |
author_facet | Simegn, Wudneh Sisay, Gashaw Seid, Abdulwase Mohammed Dagne, Henok |
author_sort | Simegn, Wudneh |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a number of psychosocial and emotional catastrophes, including loneliness. The associated lockdowns, reduced social support, and insufficiently perceived interactions are expected to heighten the level of loneliness during the pandemic. However, there is a dearth of evidence regarding the level of loneliness and what correlates with loneliness among university students in Africa, particularly in Ethiopia. OBJECTIVES: The general objective of this study was to assess the prevalence and associated factors of loneliness among university students during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ethiopia. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was undertaken. An online data collection tool was distributed to voluntary undergraduate university students. The sampling technique used was snowball sampling. Students were requested to pass the online data collection tool to at least one of their friends to ease data collection. SPSS version 26.0 was used for data analysis. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to report the results. Binary logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with loneliness. A P-value less than 0.2 was used to screen variables for the multivariable analysis, and a P-value less than 0.05 was used to declare significance in the final multivariable logistic regression. RESULT: A total of 426 study participants responded. Out of the total, 62.9% were males, and 37.1% attended fields related to health. Over three-fourths (76.5%) of the study participants encountered loneliness. Females (adjusted odds ratio (AOR): 1.75; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.01, 3.04), non-health-related departments (AOR: 1.94; 95% CI: 1.17, 3.35), ever encountering sexual harassment (AOR: 3.32; 95% CI: 1.46, 7.53), sleeping problems (AOR: 2.13; 95% CI: 1.06, 4.30), perceived stress (AOR: 6.40; 95% CI: 1.85, 22.19) and poor social support (AOR: 3.13; 95% CI: 1.10, 8.87) were significantly associated with loneliness. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION: A significant proportion of students were victims of loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic. Being female, working in non-health-related fields, having sleeping problems, encountering sexual harassment, perceived stress, and poor social support were significantly associated with loneliness. Interventions to reduce loneliness should focus on related psychosocial support to reduce stress, sleeping disturbances, and poor social support. A special focus should also be given to female students. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10325105 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-103251052023-07-07 Loneliness and its associated factors among university students during late stage of COVID-19 pandemic: An online cross-sectional study Simegn, Wudneh Sisay, Gashaw Seid, Abdulwase Mohammed Dagne, Henok PLoS One Research Article BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a number of psychosocial and emotional catastrophes, including loneliness. The associated lockdowns, reduced social support, and insufficiently perceived interactions are expected to heighten the level of loneliness during the pandemic. However, there is a dearth of evidence regarding the level of loneliness and what correlates with loneliness among university students in Africa, particularly in Ethiopia. OBJECTIVES: The general objective of this study was to assess the prevalence and associated factors of loneliness among university students during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ethiopia. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was undertaken. An online data collection tool was distributed to voluntary undergraduate university students. The sampling technique used was snowball sampling. Students were requested to pass the online data collection tool to at least one of their friends to ease data collection. SPSS version 26.0 was used for data analysis. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to report the results. Binary logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with loneliness. A P-value less than 0.2 was used to screen variables for the multivariable analysis, and a P-value less than 0.05 was used to declare significance in the final multivariable logistic regression. RESULT: A total of 426 study participants responded. Out of the total, 62.9% were males, and 37.1% attended fields related to health. Over three-fourths (76.5%) of the study participants encountered loneliness. Females (adjusted odds ratio (AOR): 1.75; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.01, 3.04), non-health-related departments (AOR: 1.94; 95% CI: 1.17, 3.35), ever encountering sexual harassment (AOR: 3.32; 95% CI: 1.46, 7.53), sleeping problems (AOR: 2.13; 95% CI: 1.06, 4.30), perceived stress (AOR: 6.40; 95% CI: 1.85, 22.19) and poor social support (AOR: 3.13; 95% CI: 1.10, 8.87) were significantly associated with loneliness. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION: A significant proportion of students were victims of loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic. Being female, working in non-health-related fields, having sleeping problems, encountering sexual harassment, perceived stress, and poor social support were significantly associated with loneliness. Interventions to reduce loneliness should focus on related psychosocial support to reduce stress, sleeping disturbances, and poor social support. A special focus should also be given to female students. Public Library of Science 2023-07-06 /pmc/articles/PMC10325105/ /pubmed/37410760 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287365 Text en © 2023 Simegn et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Simegn, Wudneh Sisay, Gashaw Seid, Abdulwase Mohammed Dagne, Henok Loneliness and its associated factors among university students during late stage of COVID-19 pandemic: An online cross-sectional study |
title | Loneliness and its associated factors among university students during late stage of COVID-19 pandemic: An online cross-sectional study |
title_full | Loneliness and its associated factors among university students during late stage of COVID-19 pandemic: An online cross-sectional study |
title_fullStr | Loneliness and its associated factors among university students during late stage of COVID-19 pandemic: An online cross-sectional study |
title_full_unstemmed | Loneliness and its associated factors among university students during late stage of COVID-19 pandemic: An online cross-sectional study |
title_short | Loneliness and its associated factors among university students during late stage of COVID-19 pandemic: An online cross-sectional study |
title_sort | loneliness and its associated factors among university students during late stage of covid-19 pandemic: an online cross-sectional study |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10325105/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37410760 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287365 |
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