Research on the Impact of COVID-19 on College Students' Mental
Health: A Chain Mediation Model Investigation
Xiyang Yin
1,*
, Yinjia Zheng
2
and Yali Ni
1,*
1
Guangzhou Huashang Vocational College, Guangzhou 511300, China
2
Department of Psychology, The Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangdong Province,
Guangzhou 510170, China
Keywords:
COVID-19, Social Isolation, Mental Health, Coping Style, Attachment Avoidance.
Abstract:
To investigate the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on college students’ mental health, the
current research examined the association between mental health and protective factors. The research used
the Symptom Checklist 90 scale (SCL-90) to assess college students’ mental health in September 2019 (T1).
Then, the SCL-90, the Experiences in Close Relationships (ECR) scale and the Coping Style Questionnaire
(CSQ) were used to assess college students’ mental health and protective factors in March 2020 (T2). Firstly,
all of the variables in the research had a close relationship. Secondly, the research found a chain mediation
model that demonstrated attachment avoidance and negative coping styles had an indirect negative impact on
T2 mental health. These findings imply that parents should provide parental support for college students and
help them cope with stress in a proper way.
1 INTRODUCTION
Social isolation is considered an effective way to
contain the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19),
which has forced goverments to impose lockdown
measure to limit the rapid virus transimission (Ahrens,
2021). There is an urgent need to assess and recognize
the influence of social isolation on college students
who might be more vulnerable to poor mental health.
Due to social isolation, college students spend
increasingly more time with their parents. Adult
attachment theory suggested that insecure attachment,
such as attachment avoidance, is a risk factor for
mental health. Although attachment and its
association with mental health have been studied in
the context of college students, there has been limited
research on its association with social isolation during
the COVID-19 outbreak (Jiang, 2014). For example,
the difficulty of attachment has been linked to the
other mental health problems. Attachment anxiety
and avoidance, the two dimensions of attachment, are
positively correlated with problematic behavior and
psychological distress. Moreover, research revealed
that coping styles had a close link with mental health
(Reilly, 2021). Negative coping style refers to dealing
with problems by neglecting, avoidance and denial,
whereas positive coping style refers to dealing with
problems through direct and rational means (Reilly,
2021). Previous researches have suggested that
negative coping style could elevate the likelihood of
psychological symptoms when confronted with
stressful events, and positive coping style could
alleviate depressed mood. It seems that attachment
and coping styles may be the specialty-specific
protective factors for mental health during the
COVID-19 outbreak. Previous studies on COVID-19
mainly focus on cross-sectional, with fewer
longitudinal studies in all periods focusing on mental
health (Li, 2020). However, it is impossible to assess
the significance of protective factors during the
epidemic without data from the pre-epidemic period.
To fill this gap, it is necessary to conduct a
longitudinal analysis. Thus, we further examine the
association between mental health and protective
factors. This research contributes to a better
understanding of the association within attachment
relationships, coping styles, and mental health in this
epidemic, adding to this literature evidence of
specialty-specific protective factors for psychology
effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
396
Yin, X., Zheng, Y. and Ni, Y.
Research on the Impact Of COVID-19 on College Students’ Mental Health: A Chain Mediation Model Investigation.
DOI: 10.5220/0012021600003633
In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Biotechnology and Biomedicine (ICBB 2022), pages 396-399
ISBN: 978-989-758-637-8
Copyright
c
2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
2 OBJECT AND METHOD
Using the random sampling method, 650 students
aged 18 to 20 years old were selected from a college
in southern China. All participants resided in
Guangdong province, a southern province in China,
without the confirmed COVID-19 cases. The
Symptom Checklist 90 (SCL-90), the Experiences in
Close Relationships (ECR) scale, and the Coping
Style Questionnaire (CSQ) were employed in this
study. (Jiang, 2014; Reilly, 2021; Zhu, 2021) These
scales have good reliability and validity, which is
widely used in the Chinese population. A two-stage
sampling design was used, which is conducted as an
online survey. Participants completed the SCL-90
scale before the COVID-19 outbreak (September
2019, T1). Then, they completed the SCL-90, the
ECR Scale, and the CSQ during the pandemic (Match
2020, T2). Totally 541 valid questionnaires were
collected in the T2 period. SPSS statistical software
(version 24.0) was used for data analysis in the
current study.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
3.1 Collinearity Analysis
In this study, the collinearity statistics method was
used to diagnose the value of TOL and Vif. The
results showed that the TOL values of attachment
anxiety, attachment avoidance, negative coping,
positive coping and T1 mental health were 0.88, 0.82,
0.72, 0.87 and 0.72, and the Vif values were 1.13,
1.22, 1.4, 1.15 and 1.4 respectively. According to the
collinearity statistics standard, the VIF values of
attachment anxiety, attachment avoidance, negative
coping, positive coping and T1 mental health were
below the cutoff of 5, indicating no concerns with
collinearity.
3.2
Correlation Analysis
According to Tab. 1, attachment anxiety (r = 0.23, P
< 0.01) and attachment avoidance (r = 0.30, P < 0.01)
were significantly positively correlated with negative
coping styles. Attachment anxiety (r = -0.15, P < 0.01)
and attachment avoidance (r = -0.13, P < 0.01) were
significantly negatively correlated with positive
coping styles. Negative coping style had a significant
positive correlation with mental health, while positive
coping style had a significant negative correlation
with mental health. Results have shown that a positive
problem-focused coping style could enhance mental
health effectively, while a negative emotion-focused
coping style may worsen mental health problems.
Furthermore, results suggested that attachment
anxiety and avoidance are positively correlated with
mental health during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Table 1: Descriptive statistical results of all variables.
M±SD 1 2 3 4 5 6
1. attachment anxiet
y
62.65±10.32 1
2. attachment avoidance 59.74±17.01 0.26
**
1
3. ne
g
ative co
p
in
g
27.6±9.01 0.23
**
0.3
**
1
4. positive coping 35.73±6.4 -0.15
**
-0.13
**
0.13
*
1
5.T1 mental health 118.69±37.82 0.17
**
0.34
**
0.43
**
-0.21
**
1
6.T2 mental health 129.55±34.94 0.15
**
0.39
**
0.36
**
-0.18
**
0.64
**
1
Note: "*" stands for P < 0.05, "* *" P < 0.01, "* * *" P < 0.001 (two-tailed), the same below.
3.3 The Impact of COVID-19 on the
Psychological Symptoms
We used the paired samples t-test to examine the
impact of COVID-19 on the psychological symptoms.
According to Tab. 2, there were significant
differences between stages emerged in all the SCL-90
subscales. When comparing the T1 and T2 SCL-90
subscales, significant increase in psycholgical
symptoms were found (Somatization: t = -5.99, P <
0.01; Obsessive symptom: t = -11.21, P < 0.01;
Interpersonal sensitivity: t = -7.7, P < 0.01;
Depression: t = -5.85, P < 0.01; Anxiety: t = -8.7, P <
0.01; Hostility: t = -2.52, P < 0.05; Terror: t = -4.91,
P < 0.01; Paranoid symptom: t = -6.68, P < 0.01;
Psychiatric symptom: t = -5.73, P < 0.01; Others: t =
-5.75, P < 0.01). Especially, college students reported
significantly more obsessive symptoms (M ± SD =
1.76 ± 0.52) during the COVID-19 outbreak (t = -
11.21, P < 0.01), compared to the pre-pandemic (M ±
SD = 1.54 ± 0.54). During the COVID-19, the
increase of obsessive symptoms may be related to the
Research on the Impact Of COVID-19 on College Students’ Mental Health: A Chain Mediation Model Investigation
397
emphasis on personal hygiene. It is effective to fill the
gap of cross-sectional study, adding to this literature
evidence of the impact of COVID-19 on the
psychological symptoms.
3.4
The Chain Model Investigation
We used the software of process 3.5 of SPSS 24.0 to
examine the chain model (Fig. 1). COVID-19's effect
on mental health had a significant path coefficient
(β=0.05, P<0.01). The direct effect was significant
(direct effect = 0.5, CI: 0.42, 0.60). The chain
mediating effect of attachment avoidance and
negative coping were found in the relationship
between T1 and T2 stage. The indirect effect was
significant (△indirect effect = 0.1, CI: 0.01,0.08),
accounting for 16.68% of the total effect. The 95%
confidence of the effect estimates of the above paths
does not include zero, so this path was significant.
When attachment avoidance became more frequent,
more negative coping styles were used to deal with
the stress caused by the COVID-19, resulting in poor
mental health. In this study, it was found that COVID-
19 and poor attachment relationships between parents
and college students were associated with mental
health problems among college students. It suggested
that parental support should be strengthened and
conflicts between parents and college students should
be reduced. These findings have both theoretical and
practical implications, shedding light on the mental
health promotion as potential protective factor.
Table 2: Before and after comparison of psychological symptoms for quality indicators.
N
T1 psychological symptoms
T2 psychological symptoms
t
M SD M SD
1. Somatization 541 1.21 0.37 1.3 0.35 -5.99
***
2. Obsessive symptom 541 1.54 0.54 1.76 0.52 -11.21
***
3. Inter
p
ersonal sensitivit
y
541 1.41 0.54 1.56 0.5 -7.7
***
4. Depression 541 1.32 0.48 1.42 0.49 -5.85
***
5. Anxiet
y
541 1.29 0.45 1.44 0.44 -8.7
***
6. Hostilit
y
541 1.3 0.47 1.35 0.44 -2.52
*
7. Terro
r
541 1.25 0.43 1.33 0.45 -4.91
***
8. Paranoid symptom 541 1.27 0.45 1.36 0.42 -6.68
***
9. Ps
y
chiatric s
y
m
p
tom 541 1.31 0.42 1.36 0.37 -5.73
***
10. Others 541 1.31 0.45 1.42 0.46 -5.75
***
Figure 1: The chain model.
T2
0.5
***
0.14
**
*
0.1
***
0.1
***
0.35
**
*
0.12
0.1
***
T1
attachment
anxiety
attachment
avoidance
negative
coping
ICBB 2022 - International Conference on Biotechnology and Biomedicine
398
4 CONCLUSION
The following conclusions are drawn from the above-
mentioned findings and discussions:
(1) In the special social environment of COVID-
19, lockdown measures lead to social isolation, which
exacerbates individual psychological problems. The
COVID-19 pandemic is inducing an additional
burden on peoples mental health, especially
emotional reactions.
(2) In terms of intervention strategies, parents
must be prepared to provide parental support for
students who coped with the pandemic with negative
styles when quarantined at home during the COVID-
19 outbreak.
(3) Based on these findings, it is necessary for
governments, college, and families to pay closed
attention to the psychological reactions of college
students during the COVID-19 pandemic and take
effective rmeasures to reverse the negative impact of
the lockdown measure on mental health for college
students.
(4) Some limitations of the current research must
be considered. Firstly, some students did not
complete the survey during the T2 measurements.
Secondly, certain COVID-19 effects might damage
mental health after a longer period due to chronic
stress. However, we were unable to observe the
mental health deterioration for a longer time.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was financially supported by the school
level teaching and scientific research project of
Guangzhou Huashang Vocational College “Research
on the changing rules and protective factors of
college students' mental health during epidemic
prevention: based on the perspective of positive
psychology” (KY2022012). This work was also
financially supported by the Youth Project of
Education department of Guangdong Province
(2021WQNCX288) and the Department of
Guangdong Institute of Ideological and Political
Education 2021 (SCNUKFYB101).
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