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Fear and Coping in Students during the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Combined Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Study
The overwhelming impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have been experienced by individuals across the world. Additional circumstances unique to students affected their studies during the early stages of the pandemic, with changes in living and studying mid-semester. The current study aimed to investigat...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8296411/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34207019 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18126551 |
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author | Hasratian, Anni M. Nordberg, Hannah O. Meuret, Alicia E. Ritz, Thomas |
author_facet | Hasratian, Anni M. Nordberg, Hannah O. Meuret, Alicia E. Ritz, Thomas |
author_sort | Hasratian, Anni M. |
collection | PubMed |
description | The overwhelming impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have been experienced by individuals across the world. Additional circumstances unique to students affected their studies during the early stages of the pandemic, with changes in living and studying mid-semester. The current study aimed to investigate predictors of fear of COVID-19 in college students during this acute phase using cross-sectional and longitudinal samples. In total, 175 undergraduate students completed an online questionnaire in the spring 2020 semester following lockdown. A subset of 58 students completed a separate survey in fall 2019, which served as a baseline. For the cross-sectional sample, pre-COVID-19 and current living situations did not predict COVID-19 fears. However, a propensity to experience panic was significantly associated with greater COVID-19 fears. How students coped with the pandemic was not associated with COVID-19 fears, although a greater propensity to use denial as a coping style tended to be related to greater COVID-19 fears. In the longitudinal subsample, students showed decreased positive mood and social stress load while depressive mood increased after lockdown. Their preferred coping styles changed, utilizing more self-distraction and acceptance, and less self-blame and substance use. Findings reflect both positive and negative consequences of the pandemic. The unique changes in students’ lifestyles will need to be met by tailored interventions. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8296411 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-82964112021-07-23 Fear and Coping in Students during the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Combined Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Study Hasratian, Anni M. Nordberg, Hannah O. Meuret, Alicia E. Ritz, Thomas Int J Environ Res Public Health Article The overwhelming impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have been experienced by individuals across the world. Additional circumstances unique to students affected their studies during the early stages of the pandemic, with changes in living and studying mid-semester. The current study aimed to investigate predictors of fear of COVID-19 in college students during this acute phase using cross-sectional and longitudinal samples. In total, 175 undergraduate students completed an online questionnaire in the spring 2020 semester following lockdown. A subset of 58 students completed a separate survey in fall 2019, which served as a baseline. For the cross-sectional sample, pre-COVID-19 and current living situations did not predict COVID-19 fears. However, a propensity to experience panic was significantly associated with greater COVID-19 fears. How students coped with the pandemic was not associated with COVID-19 fears, although a greater propensity to use denial as a coping style tended to be related to greater COVID-19 fears. In the longitudinal subsample, students showed decreased positive mood and social stress load while depressive mood increased after lockdown. Their preferred coping styles changed, utilizing more self-distraction and acceptance, and less self-blame and substance use. Findings reflect both positive and negative consequences of the pandemic. The unique changes in students’ lifestyles will need to be met by tailored interventions. MDPI 2021-06-18 /pmc/articles/PMC8296411/ /pubmed/34207019 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18126551 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Hasratian, Anni M. Nordberg, Hannah O. Meuret, Alicia E. Ritz, Thomas Fear and Coping in Students during the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Combined Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Study |
title | Fear and Coping in Students during the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Combined Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Study |
title_full | Fear and Coping in Students during the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Combined Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Study |
title_fullStr | Fear and Coping in Students during the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Combined Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Study |
title_full_unstemmed | Fear and Coping in Students during the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Combined Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Study |
title_short | Fear and Coping in Students during the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Combined Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Study |
title_sort | fear and coping in students during the early stages of the covid-19 pandemic: a combined cross-sectional and longitudinal study |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8296411/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34207019 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18126551 |
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