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Fear of Infection and Depressive Symptoms among German University Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Results of COVID-19 International Student Well-Being Study

The COVID-19 pandemic has a significant psychological impact at the population level and fear of infection is one of the stressors involved. The study aimed to examine fear of infection and associations with university students’ depressive symptoms, substance use, and social contacts during the COVI...

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Autores principales: Spatafora, Franca, Matos Fialho, Paula M., Busse, Heide, Helmer, Stefanie M., Zeeb, Hajo, Stock, Christiane, Wendt, Claus, Pischke, Claudia R.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8834840/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35162681
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19031659
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author Spatafora, Franca
Matos Fialho, Paula M.
Busse, Heide
Helmer, Stefanie M.
Zeeb, Hajo
Stock, Christiane
Wendt, Claus
Pischke, Claudia R.
author_facet Spatafora, Franca
Matos Fialho, Paula M.
Busse, Heide
Helmer, Stefanie M.
Zeeb, Hajo
Stock, Christiane
Wendt, Claus
Pischke, Claudia R.
author_sort Spatafora, Franca
collection PubMed
description The COVID-19 pandemic has a significant psychological impact at the population level and fear of infection is one of the stressors involved. The study aimed to examine fear of infection and associations with university students’ depressive symptoms, substance use, and social contacts during the COVID-19 outbreak in Germany in May 2020. A cross-sectional online survey was conducted at four German universities (n = 5.021, 69% female, mean age: 24 years) as part of the COVID-19 International Student Well-being Study. Fear of infection was assessed using self-generated items, depressive symptoms were assessed using the Center of Epidemiologic Studies Scale (CES-D-8). Associations between fear of infection and depressive symptoms were analyzed with linear regressions, controlling for sociodemographic variables. A total of 34% of the participants reported feeling worried about getting infected themselves, 75% were worried about someone from their personal network getting infected, and 78% feared that individuals close to them would get severely ill after infection. Sixteen percent of the variance of depressive symptoms could be explained by fear of infection (p ≤ 0.001). Students’ fear of infection should be considered in student communication and counseling to prevent worsening of mental health in this population.
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spelling pubmed-88348402022-02-12 Fear of Infection and Depressive Symptoms among German University Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Results of COVID-19 International Student Well-Being Study Spatafora, Franca Matos Fialho, Paula M. Busse, Heide Helmer, Stefanie M. Zeeb, Hajo Stock, Christiane Wendt, Claus Pischke, Claudia R. Int J Environ Res Public Health Article The COVID-19 pandemic has a significant psychological impact at the population level and fear of infection is one of the stressors involved. The study aimed to examine fear of infection and associations with university students’ depressive symptoms, substance use, and social contacts during the COVID-19 outbreak in Germany in May 2020. A cross-sectional online survey was conducted at four German universities (n = 5.021, 69% female, mean age: 24 years) as part of the COVID-19 International Student Well-being Study. Fear of infection was assessed using self-generated items, depressive symptoms were assessed using the Center of Epidemiologic Studies Scale (CES-D-8). Associations between fear of infection and depressive symptoms were analyzed with linear regressions, controlling for sociodemographic variables. A total of 34% of the participants reported feeling worried about getting infected themselves, 75% were worried about someone from their personal network getting infected, and 78% feared that individuals close to them would get severely ill after infection. Sixteen percent of the variance of depressive symptoms could be explained by fear of infection (p ≤ 0.001). Students’ fear of infection should be considered in student communication and counseling to prevent worsening of mental health in this population. MDPI 2022-01-31 /pmc/articles/PMC8834840/ /pubmed/35162681 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19031659 Text en © 2022 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
Spatafora, Franca
Matos Fialho, Paula M.
Busse, Heide
Helmer, Stefanie M.
Zeeb, Hajo
Stock, Christiane
Wendt, Claus
Pischke, Claudia R.
Fear of Infection and Depressive Symptoms among German University Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Results of COVID-19 International Student Well-Being Study
title Fear of Infection and Depressive Symptoms among German University Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Results of COVID-19 International Student Well-Being Study
title_full Fear of Infection and Depressive Symptoms among German University Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Results of COVID-19 International Student Well-Being Study
title_fullStr Fear of Infection and Depressive Symptoms among German University Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Results of COVID-19 International Student Well-Being Study
title_full_unstemmed Fear of Infection and Depressive Symptoms among German University Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Results of COVID-19 International Student Well-Being Study
title_short Fear of Infection and Depressive Symptoms among German University Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Results of COVID-19 International Student Well-Being Study
title_sort fear of infection and depressive symptoms among german university students during the covid-19 pandemic: results of covid-19 international student well-being study
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8834840/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35162681
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19031659
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