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Abstract
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BACKGROUND: The outbreak of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in 2019 is expected to impact the psychological health of college students. Few studies have investigated the associations among health risk communication, social media and psychological symptoms throughout a major pandemic.
OBJECTIVE: The aim of this research was to assess the prevalence of psychological symptoms and explore their associations with health risk communication and social media.
METHODS: An online survey was distributed through the Wenjuanxing platform among Chinese college students from 3 March 2020 to 15 March 2020. In addition to demographics, information on health risk communication, and social media was collected, and the Symptom Checklist 90 (SCL-90) subscale Phobia and Health Anxiety Inventory (HAI) were used to assess psychological symptoms among 1667 college students in China. Multivariable logistic regression was performed to examine these independent risk factors.
RESULTS: The prevalence of panic and health anxiety was 17.2% and 24.3%, respectively. Regarding risk communication, understanding the risk of COVID-19 (OR, 0.480; 95% CI, 0.367-0.627) was a protective factor against panic. Knowledge of prognosis (OR, 0.708; 95% CI, 0.551-0.910) and preventive measures (OR, 0.380; 95% CI, 0.195-0.742) and wearing face masks (OR, 0.445, 95% CI, 0.230-0.862) were shown to be protective factors in predicting health anxiety. Perceived lethality (OR, 1.860; 95% CI, 1.408 -2.459), being affected by the global spread (OR, 1.936; 95% CI, 1.405-2.669), and impact on social contacts (OR, 1.420; 95% CI, 1.118-1.802) were identified as significant risk factors associated with health anxiety. In terms of social media, trusted mainstream media (OR, 0.613; 95% CI, 0.461-0.816) was considered as a protective factor against health anxiety.
CONCLUSIONS: There was a high prevalence of psychological symptoms among college students. Health risk communication and social media were important in predicting psychological symptoms, especially health anxiety. Scientific and evidenced-based information should be reported by social media. Online consultation and intervention measures should be the focus of future studies.
CLINICALTRIAL:
Language: en |