Background: The COVID-19 pandemic served as a global, uncontrolled social isolation experiment, with especially pernicious effects on mental health in young adults. We sought to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic and associated social restrictions impacted the wellbeing of university undergraduate students. Methods: 277 total U.S. undergraduate students enrolled in a course on mental wellbeing and resilience that was offered once each year from 2020 to 2024. Students anonymously completed surveys of anxiety, depression, and wellbeing on a weekly basis. These behavioral data were aggregated and investigated for associations with local COVID-19 case levels and a university social gathering meter. Results: Average student wellbeing declined a few months into the COVID-19 pandemic in Fall 2020, remaining low in Fall 2021 and Spring 2022, with 63.7% of students at-risk for poor wellbeing based on standard cut-offs over these three semesters. Depression and anxiety peaked during Fall 2021 with 39.0% and 34.5% of students at-risk for anxiety and depressive disorders, respectively. Mental health gradually improved following the return to in-person learning in mid-Spring 2022. Over all five semesters, survey questions reflecting anhedonia strongly associated with social gathering restrictions whereas questions assessing acute anxiety most strongly associated with local COVID-19 case levels. Conclusions: Our findings highlight the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on university student wellbeing and suggest partially separable influences of COVID-19 infection prevalence and social isolation on levels of student anxiety and anhedonia. More research is needed to minimize the mental costs of future pandemics in an increasingly interconnected world.
Noble et al. (Tue,) studied this question.