Coping with COVID 19 Stressors: A Study with University Level Students

Abstract

COVID 19 outbreak caused the global crisis in every possible sector. More specifically, the health, economy, and education sectors. Different initiatives have been taken to mitigate the global crisis, such as movement restriction, Movement Control Order (MCO), social distancing for a long time. Consequently, all education institutions across the globe had to remain close for a long time. The limited the scope of face-to-face classes and jeopardized the social lives of students grossly. Students had to face several unforeseen challenges all over the world for which they were not prepared enough. In this study, we mainly investigated the stressors students had to face due to COVID 19 and how this has cost their coping strategies. We recruited 228 university students (Undergrad, postgrad, and Ph.D.). Among them, 50% were undergraduate students.  We found anxiety regarding family safety, timely completion of the degree and study level as the most common COVID 19 related stressors. Besides these, cognitive restructuring and social support were the two most commonly used coping strategies to handle the stress students faced during the pandemic situation. We recommend taking initiatives to accelerate positive coping strategies among students to cope with real-life crises more effectively.