Understanding Mental Wellbeing amongst Potentially Vulnerable Higher Education Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Nina Van Eekert (), Sara De Bruyn, Edwin Wouters and Sarah Van de Velde
Additional contact information
Nina Van Eekert: Department of Sociology, University of Antwerp, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium
Sara De Bruyn: Department of Sociology, University of Antwerp, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium
Edwin Wouters: Department of Sociology, University of Antwerp, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium
Sarah Van de Velde: Department of Sociology, University of Antwerp, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium

Social Sciences, 2023, vol. 12, issue 5, 1-15

Abstract: During the COVID-19 pandemic, higher education students were reported as one of the most affected in terms of wellbeing. In the current study, we explored higher education students’ self-perceptions on why and how their mental wellbeing was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and its related measures. Focus group discussions with potentially vulnerable university student groups, as well as university staff, revealed that the students described the pandemic as a period of reduced mental wellbeing. Overall, students identified two main reasons for this: the lingering aspect of the pandemic and restricted social contact and support. Moreover, we identified several underlying factors of specific student groups’ vulnerability in terms of wellbeing: entering the university during the COVID-19 pandemic and students’ living situation, employment status, financial stress, and home environment. Moreover, as a potential mitigating factor, the availability of university facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic emerged as beneficial for students’ mental wellbeing. Our results indicate the importance of universities acting as social spaces that facilitate connection and peer support and, thus, working preventively towards the improved mental wellbeing of students. Furthermore, university support in providing facilities to increase inclusivity should be organized or improved.

Keywords: higher education students; mental wellbeing; lingering COVID-19 pandemic; social support (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/12/5/282/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/12/5/282/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:12:y:2023:i:5:p:282-:d:1139478

Access Statistics for this article

Social Sciences is currently edited by Ms. Yvonne Chu

More articles in Social Sciences from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().