(PS7-D82) Mental Health Supports and Preferences for University Students During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, mental health concerns have increased for college-aged students, including but not limited to, anxiety, depression and loneliness (Robinson et al., 2021; Huang & Zhao, 2020). Previous research has found that social support acted as a buffer for individuals who are experiencing mental health difficulties. This demonstrates a need for research examining ways to increase social supports and mental health services during the ongoing global crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic (Saltzman et al., 2020). 
 
The current study aims to address current needs of mental health services for college-aged students through the assessment of preferences for mental health services and social support and how these needs may change with the severity of the COVID-19 virus (e.g., presence and absence of mask mandates). Participants included 102 college-aged students from a large university located in a mid-size Midwestern city. Ongoing collection of Qualtrics survey results has been occurring since July 2020. One-way ANOVA analyses indicated that there were no differences in optimism, coping and loneliness across time periods when mask wearing was and was not enforced. There were also no gender differences in loneliness and coping between males and females over the course of the pandemic; however, there were gender differences in optimism with males experiencing lower levels of optimism than females, F(95,1)=4.563, p=.035.  

Chi-square goodness of fit analyses indicated that there were statistically significant differences in preferences for type of communication utilized to discuss mental health concerns, χ2(5) = 229.04, p < .001. College-aged students preferred talking to another individual in-person over texting, talking on the phone, instant messaging, video chat, and other forms of communication.  

Male participants indicated that their top five sources of social support were 1) parents, 2) friends, 3) siblings, 4) romantic partners, and 5) grandparents while female participants indicated that their top five sources of social support were 1) friends, 2) parents, 3) siblings, 4) romantic partners and 5) biological grandparents. One-way ANOVA analysis suggested that college-aged females had a greater number of social supports than college-aged males, F(99,1)=10.62, p=0.002.  

These results suggest that college students prefer in-person conversations when discussing mental health concerns, which can be difficult to provide when social distancing measures are in place. These data also indicate that males’ mental health might be more negatively impacted during social isolation. This information could inform mental health programming on college campuses and offer mental health practitioners a greater understanding of what types of social supports are most preferred for their college-aged clients.