Chapter 5: Relationships Between Study Conditions, Stress, and Perceived Health: Studying at University After the COVID-19 Lockdown Available to Purchase

This study investigates how university students perceived the state of affairs after the sudden campus lockdown in Norway due to the COVID-19 outbreak, and how those perceptions affected students’ experiences of stress and self-perceived mental health. We report the results of a survey study among 8,907 students at a large Norwegian university. As indicators of their perceptions of the new study situation, we asked about their feelings of loneliness, the physical study conditions, and their tendencies to procrastinate. Analyzes based on structural equation modeling (SEM) showed that all three indicators were directly associated with students’ experienced levels of stress, their self-perceived health, sleep problems, and well-being. The relationships between the predictor variables and the outcome variables on mental health were also partly mediated through students’ self-perceived stress. Loneliness was the strongest predictor of students’ mental health, but physical study conditions and procrastination were also significantly related to the mental health indicators. To be better prepared for similar situations, universities need to provide a digital infrastructure for students’ social activity and help students develop skills in self-regulated learning.