Cognitive, emotional, physical, and behavioral stress-related symptoms and coping strategies among university students during the third wave of COVID-19 pandemic
BackgroundStress is manifested by different physical, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral stress-related symptoms, and everyone experiences it uniquely. The COVID-19 Pandemic has tremendously affected university students' lives. So, we conducted this study to determine the stress frequency, ca...
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| Published in: | Frontiers in psychiatry Vol. 13; p. 933981 |
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Frontiers Media S.A
16-09-2022
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | BackgroundStress is manifested by different physical, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral stress-related symptoms, and everyone experiences it uniquely. The COVID-19 Pandemic has tremendously affected university students' lives. So, we conducted this study to determine the stress frequency, causes, determinants, and related symptoms involving physical, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral traits and coping strategies among university students in Egypt during the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, 2021. MethodsCross-sectional study targeted 1,467 randomly selected undergraduate university students, representing all colleges from 30 universities in Egypt, through a validated self-administrated questionnaire. ResultsThe total stress-related symptom score was statistically significant (p < 0.05), higher among females, married, living on campus, with a (B) GPA, and those who had both organic and psychological disorders. The top 10 prevalent physical symptoms were headaches, chronic fatigue, hair loss, low back pain, neck pain, shoulders and arm pain, ophthalmological symptoms, acne, shakiness of extremities, and palpitations, respectively. The most reported symptoms regarding the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral aspects were anxiety and racing thoughts, moodiness and irritability, and excessive sleeping, respectively. Nine hundred and thirty-seven (63.9%) reported that the COVID-19 pandemic badly affected their lives, either directly or indirectly. The study showed that the prevalence of stress among university students is more than 97%. One thousand and five (68.5%) preferred isolation as a relieving technique. ConclusionStress and its related physical, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral symptoms are prevalent among university students. Most of the university students who were recruited reported that the COVID-19 pandemic badly affected their lives and used negative ways to deal with stress, like staying alone and sleeping too much. Positive ways to deal with stress, like seeing a therapist or meditating, were less common. |
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| Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 This article was submitted to Public Mental Health, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry Fatma A. Ibrahim orcid.org/0000-0001-7020-5843 Samar A. Amer orcid.org/0000-0002-9475-6372 ORCID: Merna Attia orcid.org/0000-0002-6457-4252 Mohamed Abd-Elfatah Elsady orcid.org/0000-0003-1141-1510 Mohamed Khaled Khorkhash orcid.org/0000-0003-0038-5409 Edited by: Hironobu Fujiwara, Kyoto University Hospital, Japan Reviewed by: Gianluca Serafini, San Martino Hospital (IRCCS), Italy; Kristiana Siste, University of Indonesia, Indonesia Marwa Abdelazim Rizk orcid.org/0000-0003-4294-9655 |
| ISSN: | 1664-0640 1664-0640 |
| DOI: | 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.933981 |