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123rf.com
Washington Post
Coronavirus has made already-stressed college students even more anxious and depressed, study finds
A Dartmouth study shows a marked increase in anxiety and depression
among college students during the initial outbreak of the novel
coronavirus.
By Lauren Lumpkin
July 24, 2020
During spring break, when college students’ stress levels typically
fall and sleep levels increase, rates of depression and anxiety soared,
researchers said after monitoring behaviors among young people during
the onset of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
After tracking the moods and movements of about 200 Dartmouth College
students for more than two years, the researchers noted that the public
health crisis had spurred higher-than-normal stress levels and bouts of
sedentary behavior — an average of 21 hours per day — suggesting
students followed social distancing orders and avoided traveling during
the initial outbreak of covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
Jeremy Huckins, a lecturer on psychological and brain sciences, and
Andrew Campbell, a researcher and computer science professor, are using
an app called StudentLife to monitor students’ locations, phone usage
and travel patterns. This is the first time researchers have used
sensor data from phones to gather behavioral insights into the way
students reacted to the public health crisis, said Campbell, who helped
develop the app.
“It sort of sits in the background quietly,” Campbell said of
StudentLife. “We can analyze those locations to look at how many places
the student visits per day, every day. We can look at phone usage, so
how much a student is using their phone. Like, unlocking their phone,
for example.”
Researchers also use StudentLife to issue weekly surveys and gauge
students’ moods and stress levels. Self-reported symptoms of anxiety
and depression spiked in March, when students were asked to leave
campuses and finish their courses online, Huckins said.
Students around that time were also preparing for final exams, already
one of the most stressful times during any term. They were adjusting to
shelter-in-place policies and coping with social isolation when
researchers noticed a marked increase in stress levels.
Researchers noted students were anxious and depressed around spring
break, when stress levels typically drop and sleep levels increase,
Campbell said.
“We didn’t see that at all during spring break because most of them had
to go back home,” he added. The campus had shuttered to slow the spread
of the coronavirus.
And when students went home, they stayed there during the first few weeks of the pandemic.
“Many people wouldn’t expect college students to listen to social
distancing orders, but these students did,” Huckins said. “We found
that when social distancing was recommended by local governments,
students were more sedentary and visited fewer locations on any given
day.”
The study, published last month in the Journal of Medical Internet
Research, suggests the impact of the coronavirus reaches beyond
physical health and safety. More Americans are dealing with the mental
health effects of spending more time indoors, away from loved ones and,
in many cases, unemployed, experts say. But mental illness has long
been a pressing concern for college students: More than 40 percent have
felt “so depressed that it was difficult to function,” according to a
2019 report from the American College Health Association.
Advocates worry students will struggle to get help as their mental
health continues to deteriorate. After students left campuses last
semester for their homes in other states, many schools scaled back
clinical therapy services. A patchwork of licensure laws that, in many
cases, prevent psychologists from practicing across state lines, made
therapy inaccessible for thousands of students.
Campus health centers have been offering group counseling sessions on
Zoom and wellness webinars to fill in the gaps, particularly for
students who cannot access therapy at home. But even with students
heading back to campuses in the fall, the way care is delivered will
likely look very different from a year ago.
Huckins and Campbell are still analyzing data recorded during the final
weeks of the school year, which will provide insight into the way
students adjusted to remote learning. Preliminary data show students
also experienced higher-than-normal levels of anxiety and depression
through the summer.
But researchers still don’t know how students will be affected long term.
“An unresolved question is if mental health and physical activity will
continue to degrade over time, or if we will see a recovery, and how
long that recovery will take,” Huckins said.
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