Effects of an Intervention on University Students' Mental Health and Learning During COVID-19: a Non-randomized Controlled Study

In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) as a global pandemic. In France, all universities have been closed on 16th March 2020. In September 2020, face-to-face teaching restarted in French universities, but with new constraints (e.g., reducing number of students in classrooms, wearing masks) and significant changes in teachings (e.g., distance and/or hybrid education). In October 2020, several French universities closed down again due to significant contamination among students. Finally, on 30th October 2020, the French government imposed a second lockdown and all universities have been closed. It is only in February 2021 that face-to-face teaching started again in French universities (within the limit of 50% of the universities' capacity and 20% of the teachings).

Since the beginning of the COVID-19, a deterioration in their mental health was observed, particularly during lockdown, with very high levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms (Essadek & Rabeyron, 2020; Husky et al., 2020; Le Vigouroux et al., 2021; Odriozola-González et al., 2020). This may be explained in part by the fact that people who were experiencing high levels of psychological distress prior to the pandemic are the most vulnerable (Druss, 2020; Yao et al., 2020), and before COVID-19, university students were already identified as a vulnerable population (see literature review: Paula et al., 2020). Before COVID-19, a central element of students' psychological distress was their difficulties coping with an accumulation of hassles, such as university pressure, schedule changes or financial difficulties (Réveillère et al., 2001). The pandemic confronts students with new and unprecedented events (e.g., online learning, online examinations, regular and significant changes to their schedule) that challenge their ability to adapt (Araújo et al., 2020; Zhai & Du, 2020). Recent research has shown that the more university students used avoidance strategies during lockdown, the more they had symptoms of anxiety and depression (Dawson & Golijani-Moghaddam, 2020; Le Vigouroux et al., 2021). In addition, the inability to tolerate uncertainty in the COVID-19 pandemic can trigger fear of virus (Schimmenti et al., 2020) and impact negatively on psychological well-being (Satici et al., 2020).

COVID-19 has brought about a digital revolution in higher education (Strielkowski, 2020). However, distance learning was not without consequences on student stress (IAU, 2020). This confronts students with new obstacles (e.g., technological, personal, family; Baticulon et al., 2020). The detrimental effects of distance education, in terms of stress and anxiety, could also have important consequences for students' learning and academic success. Indeed, the more depressive and anxiety symptoms learners have, the more their academic difficulties are exacerbated (Mills & Blankstein, 2000), and the less successful their learning strategies are (Warr & Downing, 2000). Furthermore, the fear of losing an academic year was the concern that most exacerbated students' lockdown anxiety (Hasan & Bao, 2020).

The deleterious effects of the pandemic on students' health are now evident. However, some areas of research are still under-explored.

1. Most of the research is largely descriptive and do not identify the factors involved in the deterioration in mental health and learning
2. To date, no interventional studies have been conducted to prevent these deteriorations during the pandemic.