Anxiety and depressive symptoms in college students during the late stage of the COVID-19 outbreak: a network approach

Mental health problems are common in college students even in the late stage of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak. Network analysis is a novel approach to explore interactions of mental disorders at the symptom level. The aim of this study was to elucidate characteristics of depressiv...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Translational psychiatry 2021-12, Vol.11 (1), p.638-638, Article 638
Main Authors: Bai, Wei, Cai, Hong, Liu, Shou, Chen, Xu, Sha, Sha, Cheung, Teris, Lin, Jessie Jingxia, Cui, Xiling, Ng, Chee H., Xiang, Yu-Tao
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
692/699
692/699/476/1414
Anxiety
Anxiety - epidemiology
Behavioral Sciences
Biological Psychology
College students
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
Depression - epidemiology
Disease Outbreaks
Humans
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Neurosciences
Pharmacotherapy
Psychiatry
SARS-CoV-2
Students
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Summary:Mental health problems are common in college students even in the late stage of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak. Network analysis is a novel approach to explore interactions of mental disorders at the symptom level. The aim of this study was to elucidate characteristics of depressive and anxiety symptoms network in college students in the late stage of the COVID-19 outbreak. A total of 3062 college students were included. The seven-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7) and nine-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) were used to measure anxiety and depressive symptoms, respectively. Central symptoms and bridge symptoms were identified based on centrality and bridge centrality indices, respectively. Network stability was examined using the case-dropping procedure. The strongest direct relation was between anxiety symptoms “Nervousness” and “Uncontrollable worry”. “Fatigue” has the highest node strength in the anxiety and depression network, followed by “Excessive worry”, “Trouble relaxing”, and “Uncontrollable worry”. “Motor” showed the highest bridge strength, followed by “Feeling afraid” and “Restlessness”. The whole network was robust in both stability and accuracy tests. Central symptoms “Fatigue”, “Excessive worry”, “Trouble relaxing” and “Uncontrollable worry”, and critical bridge symptoms “Motor”, “Feeling afraid” and “Restlessness” were highlighted in this study. Targeting interventions to these symptoms may be important to effectively alleviate the overall level of anxiety and depressive symptoms in college students.
ISSN:2158-3188
2158-3188
DOI:10.1038/s41398-021-01738-4