How College Students Manage Coronavirus Stress – U.S. News
Virtual parties, telehealth services and resources from student health centers are helping students cope with COVID-19’s impact on mental health.
THE NEW CORONAVIRUS that causes the respiratory disease COVID-19 has upended countless lives, and college students are no exception. But the additional stress placed on students has left some struggling to manage their mental health during home quarantines, social distancing and missed milestones like graduation.
One in five college students say their mental health has significantly worsened during the coronavirus pandemic, according to an April survey of more than 2,000 students conducted by the nonprofit Active Minds. While mental health experts and researchers don’t yet know the full extent of the virus’s impact on the mental health of college-age students, some fear the population may be at high risk.
“The rates of depression, anxiety, PTSD and eating disorders in this population have been very high, and that was prior to January 2020,” says Thomas Insel, former director of the National Institute of Mental Health. “When you add in this new set of stressors, I think there’s every reason to be concerned, but we need the data to know what that really looks like, and we don’t yet have it.”
Because 75% of adults with a mental illness first began experiencing it before age 25, Insel says, mental problems are “the chronic disorders of the student-aged population” and stand apart from most other medical disorders, which are more common later in life.