Transitioning to college during COVID-19: A brief report on incoming students’ self-reports of mental health from 2020 to 2022

Abstract

Objective: Depression and anxiety have been identified as growing concerns for many populations in the United States, including young adults. We investigated how internalizing symptoms may have changed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic among students transitioning to college.Participants: Participants were incoming undergraduates in Fall 2020, 2021, and 2022 at Northeastern Universities (N = 263).Methods: Participants completed self-reports of mood, repetitive thinking, and social satisfaction within two weeks of beginning their first college semester.Results: Depression and anxiety symptoms appear to differ by year, such that both have increased over time. These results seem to be co-occurring with an increase in repetitive negative thinking – a known predictor of depression and anxiety.Conclusions: These preliminary results suggest that mental health concerns in young adults may be worsening despite the resumption of in-person activities post-initial pandemic onset. This highlights the need to monitor and intervene on mental health in students transitioning to college.

Keywords:

• College transition
• depression
• anxiety
• COVID-19

SUBJECT CLASSIFICATION CODES:

• Mental Health

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to all of the participants, as well as the many offices and individuals who assisted in recruiting participants at Rowan University, Montclair State University, Stony Brook University, and the City University of New York system, especially: Jared K. Richards, Kristen Gillespie-Lynch, Bella Kofner, Talena C. Day, Rachel G. McDonald, Jenna Lamm, Erin Kang, Matthew D. Lerner, and Mary Isaac Cargill.

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States and received approval from the Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine Institutional Review Board, which was the IRB of Record for most recruitments sites (study ID Pro2020001172), as well as Stony Brook University (IRB2021-00266).

Notes

1 Current available evidence suggests that identity-first language (e.g., “autistic person”) is preferred over person-first language (e.g., “person with autism”) by the majority of autistic adults. Therefore, language in this paper is chosen accordingly, to align with community preferences..^63–65

person-first language (e.g., “person with autism”) by the majority of autistic adults. Therefore, language in this paper is chosen accordingly, to align with community preferences.^63–65

2 Generally, the same pattern of results (increased depression, anxiety, and repetitive thinking) was observed in the endpoint survey packet (in December of students’ first semester). Differing slightly from baseline results, friendship satisfaction also differed significantly by year at endpoint, such that it appeared to be worsening each year, after controlling for SRS-2 and sex, F(1, 157)=5.64, p=.02, R²_Model=0.08, semi-partial R²_Year=0.03. It is unclear why this is the case that students in later years would be less satisfied with their friendships at the end of the semester than students in 2020. One possibility is that universities and students may still be adjusting to having more in-person events, and making connections in a context increasingly focused on in-person events may be a challenging adjustment for some students. Anecdotally, some students have expressed that early in the pandemic they were more in touch with high school friends via more regular virtual game nights and online hangouts. It is possible that as this norm has decreased, connection with high pre-college peers has also decreased, resulting in some feeling of loss of friendship. More research would be needed to more fully understand this phenomenon.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Sources of support included New Jersey Governor’s Council for Medical Research and Treatment of Autism Predoctoral Fellowship CAUT23AFP (EM), grant from National Institute of Mental Health R01-MH113576 (KG) and Rowan University internal discretionary funds (KG).