Misamer Melanie, Signerski-Krieger Jörg, Bartels Claudia, Belz Michael
HAWK University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Göttingen, Germany.
Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center, Göttingen, Germany.
Front Sociol. 2021 Sep 15;6:705809. doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2021.705809. eCollection 2021.
Mental health is severely challenged by the COVID-19 pandemic due to a variety of restrictions in public and private life. Students in particular may face additional and unique stressors: face-to-face classes have been largely replaced by digital formats, leading to further reduced social contacts, thus facilitating the development of psychological symptoms. In this study, we aimed to assess the impact of the current peri-pandemic situation on students' 1) locus of control and 2) sense of coherence, both of which have been linked to mental health in previous work. A total of 403 social work students from Germany participated, providing both retrospective (pre-pandemic) and current (February/March 2021) ratings. Furthermore, 324 social work professionals were included to analyze differences between both groups. Locus of control shifted significantly from internal to external during the pandemic for students and professionals. Furthermore, high mental burden correlated with increased external and decreased internal locus of control. Sense of coherence decreased during the pandemic for the entire sample and correlated with high mental burden. Overall, students showed a stronger drop compared to professionals, primarily due to a more pronounced decrease in perceived meaningfulness (all < 0.001). In summary, students and professionals responded with increased feelings of powerlessness in the absence of sufficient coping strategies-this could lead to further deterioration of mental health as the pandemic continues. In this context, students appear to be particularly vulnerable to a reduction in sense of coherence. We conclude that interventions to improve coping strategies are urgently needed.
由于公共和私人生活中的各种限制，心理健康受到了新冠疫情的严重挑战。尤其是学生可能面临额外且独特的压力源：面对面授课在很大程度上已被数字化形式取代，导致社交接触进一步减少，从而促使心理症状的发展。在本研究中，我们旨在评估当前疫情期间的情况对学生的1）控制点和2）连贯感的影响，这两者在先前的研究中都与心理健康有关。共有403名来自德国的社会工作专业学生参与，提供了回顾性（疫情前）和当前（2021年2月/3月）的评分。此外，纳入了324名社会工作专业人员以分析两组之间的差异。在疫情期间，学生和专业人员的控制点显著地从内控转向了外控。此外，高心理负担与外控增加和内控减少相关。在疫情期间，整个样本的连贯感下降，且与高心理负担相关。总体而言，与专业人员相比，学生的下降更为明显，主要是由于感知到的意义下降更为显著（所有P<0.001）。总之，在缺乏足够应对策略的情况下，学生和专业人员都表现出更强的无助感——随着疫情持续，这可能导致心理健康进一步恶化。在这种情况下，学生似乎特别容易受到连贯感下降的影响。我们得出结论，迫切需要采取干预措施来改善应对策略。
