Fear and Coping in Students during the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Combined Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Study
Open Access
- 18 June 2021
- journal article
- research article
- Published by MDPI AG in International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
- Vol. 18 (12), 6551
- https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18126551
Abstract
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.This publication has 36 references indexed in Scilit:
- Toward the future of psychiatric diagnosis: the seven pillars of RDoCBMC Medicine, 2013
- Dealing with negative life events: differential effects of personal resources, coping strategies, and control beliefsEuropean Journal of Ageing, 2010
- Psychosocial and coping responses within the community health care setting towards a national outbreak of an infectious diseaseJournal of Psychosomatic Research, 2010
- Life events in panic disorder-an update on “candidate stressors”Depression and Anxiety, 2010
- Psychological Responses to Outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome: A Prospective, Multiple Time‐Point StudyJournal of Personality, 2004
- You want to measure coping but your protocol’ too long: Consider the brief copeInternational Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 1997
- A validation study of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) in different groups of Dutch subjectsPsychological Medicine, 1997
- The Analysis of Social Science Data with Missing ValuesSociological Methods & Research, 1989
- Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1988
- The Hospital Anxiety and Depression ScaleActa Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 1983