The Impact of Psychology Interventions on Changing Mental Health Status and Sleep Quality in University Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic

  1. Jing Xiao
  2. Yu Jiang
  3. Yu Zhang
  4. Xinyi Gu
  5. Wenjing Ma
  6. Bo Zhuang
  7. Ziqi Zhou
  8. Lingli Sang
  9. Yitian Luo
  10. Yulong Lian

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Abstract

Objective

We evaluated the change in mental health and sleep quality of college students at four time periods.

Methods

Mental health status and sleep quality were using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R) questionnaire across four time periods. Psychology interventions were carried out from the third period.

Results

Students in the third period had higher PSQI total scores [mean (SD), 6.01 (3.27)] than those in the first period [5.60 (3.11)], second period [4.17 (2.10)] and fourth period [4.09 (2.80)]. After adjustment for covariates there was a decline of 1.89 points in the PSQI in the fourth period compared with the highest period. The SCL-90-R scores were highest in the second period [121.19 (47.83)], and were higher than the scores in the first [107.60 (52.21)] and second period [107.79 (27.20)] and lowest in the fourth period [97.82 (17.12)]. The decline in scores was 23.38 points after adjustment for covariates. The prevalence of psychological distress and sleep disturbances respectively decreased from 28.6% to 11.7% and from 10.4% to 2.6% comparing to the highest period. Sleep quality showed a significant positive correlation with mental health status.

Conclusions

The pattern of change in mental health status was different to that of sleep quality. The implementation of comprehensive psychology intervention may improve mental health and sleep quality. These findings may inform public health policy during the reopening of schools in other regions.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.09.01.20186411: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: The research protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of Nantong University.
    Consent: Written informed consent was obtained from all participants
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    However, the limitations of the current study should also be considered. First, small sample size may have led to bias our findings. Second, the study was restricted to university students, so the results may not apply to other populations. Third, unfortunately we did not collect data in March, the period of activated public health response level II; thus, we do not know the changes in mental health and sleep status during this time. Finally, some important covariates such as resilience and psychological adjustment were not included in the study, and the improved outcomes may be partly due to these factors. In conclusion, we found that the pattern of change in mental health status was different to that of sleep quality, and the implementation of comprehensive mental health interventions may improve mental health and sleep quality during the COVID-19 pandemic. We recommend continuous surveillance of mental health and sleep quality, and the early provision of mental health and sleep hygiene interventions for university students when considering reopening schools.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: Please consider improving the rainbow (“jet”) colormap(s) used on page 14. At least one figure is not accessible to readers with colorblindness and/or is not true to the data, i.e. not perceptually uniform.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.09.01.20186411 on medRxiv