Huiyan Duan et.

al 2022 study has shown that during the post-pandemic era, insomnia
severity was positively correlated to anxiety severity and depression.
The novel virus, belonging to the coronavirus, emerged in, the largest the world. At
present, it has quickly brought the pandemic under control and entered the post-
pandemic era. In September 2020, colleges and universities started their new term
successively and various restrictions were taken to prevent the recurrence of the
pandemic. These measures, such as restricting access to campus, travel limitations,
wearing mask and keeping social distance, may affect students’ study, daily life and
psychosomatic health.
In the present study, female students are more likely to suffer from insomnia and
anxiety than male students, which is significantly different from the gender difference in
the sleep quality of college students during the non-epidemic period. Epidemiological
studies have shown that women have a higher incidence rate than men in mental
disorders such as anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, which may be related to
the changes in gonadal hormone levels under stress and gender differences in brain
regions. In addition, the survey also found that postgraduates were more likely to suffer
from insomnia than undergraduates. This result may be the social environment
pressure, the pressure of academic and career development, as well as the financial
pressure of life.

Hussan Munir (2022) study said that the outbreak of COVID-19 has affected people all
around the world. Governments had no choice but to put people in self-isolation to stop
the spread of the virus. As a result, all companies and educational institutions switched
to working or studying from home. However, the shift to online education has caused a
communication deterioration between students and teachers. Less social interaction
with other students leads to depression, anxiety, and stress. The recommendations for
post-pandemic education include the unified selection of digital learning tools across
courses, a designated budget for digital learning tools, training support, and hybrid
learning methods. In conclusion, the study proposes blended and hybrid learning to
improve higher education at the university, requiring digital tools to minimize students’
communication barriers. Furthermore, this study confirms the findings of previous
studies that many students experience anxiety and stress due to self-isolation during
the pandemic. Students also believed that teachers were not prepared for this shift, and
therefore, all teachers opted for teaching strategies that suited them better. Students
suggested that teachers focus more on motivating and engaging students in digital
education.
Akhtarul Islam (2020). Study claimed that the unprecedented experience of ‘home
quarantine’ under lockdown with the uncertainty of academic and professional career
has multifaceted impacts on the mental health of students. The ongoing COVID-19
pandemic is creating a psycho-emotional chaotic situation as countries have been
reporting a sharp rise of mental health problems, including anxiety, depression, stress,
sleep disorder as well as fear, among its citizens, that eventually increased the
substance use and sometimes suicidal behavior. The greater exposure to
‘misinformation’ through social media is more likely contributing to the development of
anxiety, depression, and other mental health problems among its population of different
socioeconomic background.

Students were experiencing heightened depression and anxiety. Around 15% of the
students reportedly had moderately severe depression, whereas 18.1% were severely
suffering from anxiety. The binary logistic regression suggests that older students have
greater depression. It is also evident that students who provided private tuition in the
pre-pandemic period had depression. It is expected that both the government and
universities could work together to fix the academic delays and financial problems to
reduce depression and anxiety among university students. To minimize the growing
mental health problems, the government, along with the universities, should work
together to deliver promptly and accurately economy-oriented psychological support to
the university students.

Wei Bang Hong Cai (2021). According to his study, anxiety and depression network in
various populations. For example, fatigue was identified as the central and bridge
symptom in migrant Filipino domestic workers, which may increase the risk of
comorbidity between anxiety and depression. In another psychiatric sample, sad mood
and worry were the two most central symptoms in the network suggesting that targeting
these symptoms in treatment would be more effective. It was suggested that the
network structure of anxiety and depressive symptoms should be examined separately
across populations of different socioeconomic backgrounds.

To date, no studies have investigated how depressive and anxiety symptoms are
related to each other in college students using the network model, particularly in the late
stage of the COVID-19 outbreak, which gives us the impetus to conduct this study. The
aim of the present study was hence to examine the associations between depressive
and anxiety symptoms in college students in the late stage of the COVID-19 outbreak
using network analysis.

Jungmin Lee et al (2021). When it comes to stress, about 63% of students had a
moderate level of stress, and another 24.61% of students fell into a severe stress
category. Only 12% of students had a low level of stress. In other words, more than
eight in ten students in the survey experienced moderate to severe stress during the
pandemic. This result is comparable to the Active Minds’ survey results that report 91%
of college students reported experiencing feelings of stress and anxiety since the
pandemic. In terms of anxiety, approximately this finding implies that nearly half of
students in this study needed to get professional help. This proportion of students with
moderate to severe anxiety is almost double that for university students or the United
Arab Emirates soon after the COVID-19 outbreak. Lastly, students suffered from
moderate and severe depression, respectively. These proportions are far higher than
college students in China measured during the pandemic but slightly higher than a
nationwide sample of U.S. college students assessed before the pandemic. Given that
our study measured these mental health symptoms for the first six weeks of the
pandemic, we speculate that the proportion of students with moderate or severe
depression would increase over time.

References:

HuiyanDuan, MinminGong, QiongZhang, Xiaofei Huang BaojunWan (2022). Research on

sleep status, body mass index, anxiety and depression of college students during the
post-pandemic era in Wuhan, China.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165032722000192

Hussan Munir (2022). Reshaping Sustainable University Education in Post-Pandemic

World: Lessons Learned from an Empirical Study https://www.mdpi.com/2227-
7102/12/8/524
Akhtarul Islam, Sutapa Dey Barna, Hasin Raihan, Nafiul Alam Khan, Tanvir Hossain
(2020). Depression and anxiety among university students during the COVID-19
pandemic in Bangladesh: A web-based cross-sectional survey
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0238162

Wei Bai, Hong Cai, Shou Liu, Xu Chen, Sha Sha, Teris Cheung, Jessie Jingxia

Lin, Xiling Cui,  Chee H. Ng & Yu-Tao Xiang (2021). Anxiety and depressive symptoms
in college students during the late stage of the COVID-19 outbreak: a network approach
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-021-01738-4

Jungmin Lee, Hyun Ju Jeong & Sujin Kim (2021). Stress, Anxiety, and Depression

Among Undergraduate Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic and their Use of
Mental Health Services https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10755-021-09552-y