Covid-19 and college students mental health: a critical review of the international literature

Abstract

Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been concern about its impact on educational institutions, both on the physical well-being of students, teachers and other employees, as well as on their mental health. It is essential to seek to understand the conjunctural and structural causes of the psychological impacts of the pandemic, its most evident reasons and those less obvious. In this article, we sought to discuss the international literature, based on the analysis of scientific publications, published between 01/01/2020 and 02/19/2021, in the PubMed indexing base, using the keywords “students”; “university”; “COVID”; “mental health”. In total 205 publications were analyzed: 81% adopted psychometric instruments, and the most reported symptoms were anxiety, depression and stress. Despite limiting the analysis and responses, the perspective is relevant to identify and describe the symptomatic scenario. However, quantitative information alone will not necessarily mean better conditions to deal with risks. With this article, we hope to contribute to a better understanding of the phenome-non and to the formulation of public policies.