Reentry Shock and the Role of Communication in Psychological Health: A Study of Abrupt Reentry During the COVID-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT

This study examines the associations between re-entry shock, re-entry communication, and mental health outcomes among 127 students from different U.S. universities who abruptly returned home from study abroad during the COVID-19 pandemic. Re-entry shock was associated with higher levels of depression, loneliness, and perceived stress, and lower levels of life satisfaction upon re-entry. Mediation analyses suggest that re-entry communication explained the negative effects of re-entry shock on depression and perceived stress but had no effect on loneliness and life satisfaction. Our findings highlight the negative effects of re-entry shock on returning students’ psychological health and the possible hindering role of re-entry communication.

KEYWORDS:

• re-entry shock
• re-entry communication
• psychological health
• study abroad
• COVID-19

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The results of our preliminary analyses investigating the predictive power of covariates is available upon request.

Additional information

Funding

The authors received funding from the Robert Wickwire Trust.