Well-being levels among students during the covid-19 pandemic

Introduction. Over the past few months, the lives of people around the world have changed dramatically. Within a few days, they have been forced to adapt their daily behavior and habits to new conditions. The cause of this phenomenon is a state of the pandemic, introduced by the WHO in connection with the spread of the new pathogen causing COVID-19. The group particularly affected by the restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic are the people involved in remote working, including students who, since the beginning of the pandemic, have been carrying out the entire educational process or using the support of distance learning methods and techniques. Objective. the study aims to assess the level of well-being and emotions accompanying the COVID-19 pandemic among students of three large Polish public universities. Material and methods. The survey was attended by 1054 students from three Polish public universities. The study was conducted using a questionnaire including mental health interview;WHO-5 scale-Good Feeling Index developed by the Psychiatric Research Unit of WHO;Beck's scale of depression;author's multiple-choice questions about the impact of the epidemic situation on the current life of the studied population. Statistical significance was determined using the chi-quadrat, U Mann-Whitney, and Kruskal-Wallis test. Statistical significance level p=0.05 was assumed for each test. Results. The mild form of depression was distinguished: 17% of respondents in March, 28% in June/July, and October. A moderate form of depression was found: in 4% of respondents in March, 6% in June/July, and 8% in October. The risk of developing depressive symptoms is higher with each successive stage of the study, this phenomenon is particularly visible in the group of women in whom depressive symptoms are more frequent (p<0.05). Conclusion. The study group is characterized by a high risk of depression. One-third of the respondents were found to have a mild to moderate stage of the disease. It is worth noting that in the studied group no symptoms indicating a deep form of depression were observed. © JPES.