Stress Levels and Mental Well-Being Among Students During e-Learning

Completed

• Conditions: Depression; Anxiety
• Interventions: Diagnostic Test: Stress Levels and Mental Well-Being assessment

• Registration Number: NCT04926441
• Lead Sponsor: The Opole University of Technology

Brief Summary

Introducing restrictions on human contact has been effective in preventing the uncontrolled spread of COVID-19, however, it appears to have negatively impacted mental health. Psychological problems in different age groups occur with different intensity and duration of the pandemic. This study was aimed to assess the impact of introducing distance learning (e-Learning) on the stress levels and mental well-being among Polish, Slovak and Lithuanian Students.

Detailed Description

The COVID-19 pandemic has had the effect of accelerating changes in educational processes around the world. It resulted in a rapid conversion from face-to-face to online classes. This has disrupted the regular pattern of education and standard practices that have been followed for many years. It is a big organizational challenge for the academics but most importantly for the students. Remote learning has resulted in long-term social isolation and limitations in interaction with peers. It has also been noted that about 30% of students have symptoms of depression and increased levels of perceived stress, which during the COVID-19 pandemic affects about 50% of young people. Many factors have an impact on this condition, besides the epidemic situation, the social mood and the numerous restrictions, the prolonged time spent online and the reduced level of physical activity have an additional negative impact on their mental health. Due to the dynamic situation of the pandemic, there is a lack of current studies on the mental state of young people especially in the context of ongoing e-learning. Therefore, it was decided to investigate what is the prevalence of depressive disorders and the level of perceived stress during the ongoing remote learning in the group of students of 8 European Universities among Poland, Slovakia and Lithuania.

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2021-02-15
• Primary Completion: 2021-03-01
• Study Completion: 2021-04-30
• Status Verified: 2021-06
• Study First Submitted: 2021-06-13
• Study First Submitted QC: 2021-06-13
• Last Update Submitted: 2021-06-13
• Study First Posted: 2021-06-15
• Last Update Posted: 2021-06-15

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 4870

Inclusion Criteria

• Students attending the course cycle

Exclusion Criteria

• Inability to self-complete the research questionnaires;
• Psychiatric or psychological treatment, likewise taking medications that affect the psyche during the research project;

Study & Design

• Study Type: OBSERVATIONAL
• Study Design: Not specified

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Students from 8 European Universities, regardless of field of study and academic year	Stress Levels and Mental Well-Being assessment	At the beginning of the summer semester of the 2020/2021 academic year, stress levels as well as symptoms of anxiety and depression were assessed in students at four universities.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Perception of Stress Questionnaire (PSQ)	20 minutes	The Perception of Stress Questionnaire (PSQ) is a 27-item scale scoring from 1 to 5 for each item. 21 items examine the level of stress in the area of emotional tension, external stress and intrapsychic stress, and 6 items refer to the lie scale. The global scoring for perception of stress ranges from 21 to 105 with a cut-off point of 60 for high level of perceived stress. The higher the score, the greater the sense of stress. PSQ will be performed at the beginning and after four weeks of treatment.
Beck's Depression Inventory	20 minutes	The BDI-II is a tool used to determine the degree of intensity of depressive symp-toms. The 21-item questionnaire consists of two parts: emotional and somatic. Depending on the number of points obtained, the severity of depression can be assessed. A range of 0-10 points indicates no depression, 11-27 indicates moderate mood disorder, and 28 indicates major depressive disorder. The cutoff for dividing patients into depressive and non-depressive subgroups was a score of 10, following the guidelines given by Beck et al.
Authors' survey	10 minutes	The survey contains five sections on the impact of e-learning on various aspects of life. The survey responses were structured on a 5-point Likert scale from 1 to 5, where 1 refers to "strongly disagree" statement and 5 to "definitely agree". Questions were grouped into areas: Social life (3 questions), Education skills (4 questions), Eco-nomic field (2 questions), Nutrition habits and drugs (2 questions). The questionnaire showed satisfactory reliability with a Cronbach alpha of 0.82.

Trial Locations

Locations (8)

The University School of Physical Education in Wroclaw; 🇵🇱 Wrocław, Poland

Lithuanian Sports University; 🇱🇹 Kaunas, Lithuania

Jan Dlugosz University in Czestochowa; 🇵🇱 Częstochowa, Poland

Faculty of Physical Education and Physiotherapy, Opole University of Technology; 🇵🇱 Opole, Poland

Slovak Medical University in Bratislava; 🇸🇰 Banská Bystrica, Slovakia

Matej Bel University; 🇸🇰 Banská Bystrica, Slovakia

Technical University of Košice; 🇸🇰 Košice, Slovakia

Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra; 🇸🇰 Nitra, Slovakia