Participants
The participants of the study will be randomly selected students from a large university in the United States. After its closure on April, 2020, due to the outbreak of the pandemic, students continued to learn virtually. Additionally, the state in which the university is located had issued a lockdown notice by the start of April, whereby individual movement in public spaces has been restricted to limit the spread of the disease. The study will have 150 participants, who will be recruited via WhatsApp and emails by the undergraduate research team. The study has several inclusion criteria. First, the participants should be registered students of the university by the time the online questionnaire will be administered. Also, the participants should have attained an age of 18 years during the research. Additionally, students who will not be in session during the time of the study will be disqualified.
All participants will be sent a link to the questionnaire via email and will be reminded twice via text message to participate in the research. Additionally, ethics approval will be obtained by the Institutional Review Board to ensure that the research follows all required guidelines (Gelling, 2016). Also, written consent will be obtained from all the participants in the study. If the participants are unable to complete the study, they will be thanked and permitted to leave. The participants in the study will not be compensated.
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Design
A cross-sectional questionnaire will be applied in the collection of information on the psychological impacts of the coronavirus outbreak on the students, common stressors, and coping strategies in university students. The online questionnaire will be distributed to students via links through a random sampling technique. The recruiters, who are students, will send details about the study through school WhatsApp groups and group emails and ask interested students to register for the study. Individuals who agree to participate in the research will be sent all information they need to know about the research. Additionally, a consent form will be later sent to ensure that the participants fully understand the exercise and are ready to participate in the study (Lokesh et al., 2013). The link to the online questionnaire will be sent directly to students who agree to participate in the study via email and WhatsApp. To save time, the participants will be given three days to fill the questionnaire. Additionally, to avoid duplication during the study, browser cookies will be used to prevent the participants from using the same browser to participate in the study again. After participating in the study, students will be given links that have reliable information about COVID-19, such as the CDC website.
Materials
For this research, a self-administered, anonymous, online questionnaire based on stress investigation and coping strategies will be used in collecting the demographic characteristics, stressors related to COVID-19, mental health, coping strategies, and student’s educational program characteristics.
Academic Program: The participants will be asked to indicate several characteristics about their current academic program. The information that the participants will be asked to indicate is the nature of their study (part-time or full-time), the year of study, and the field of study.
Demographic Characteristics: The research participants will be asked to indicate various characteristics about themselves. They will indicate their age, marital status, race, gender, religion, and psychiatric diagnosis.
COVID-19 Stressors: The participants in the study will be asked to indicate how various possible COVID-19 stressors affected them. The stressors will be classified as individual (academic achievement, family/friend’s health, and personal health) and environmental (academic uncertainties and economic challenges caused by COVID-19). The participants will record their responses on a Likert scale (4 point) in the questionnaire. On the scale, 1= “not stressful,” 2= “slightly stressful,” 3= “moderately stressful,” while 4= “very stressful.”
Coping Strategies: The study participants will be asked to indicate various strategies that they used, use, or tried to use to deal with stress related to the coronavirus outbreak. The strategies include playing video games, watching movies, meditation, listening to music, seeking support, exercising, or learning new skills such as cooking.
Procedure
After receiving the link to the questionnaire, the participants will be able to view five sections/pages. Only one section will open at a time; the next page will open automatically after the answers of the current section are submitted. First, the participants will fill a consent form attached to the questionnaire; the other pages will not open if the consent form is not filled. Two sections involve filling out personal information, that is, demographic information and academic program details. After filling in the personal details, the COVID-19 stressors page will automatically open. On this page, there will be various questions, which will be filled in a 4-point Likert Scale. An example of a question is: How stressful is the academic uncertainty caused by COVID-19 to you? The participants will answer such questions on the Likert Scale. 4 in the scale will indicate that the participant is/was very stressed while 1 indicates no stress.
After submitting answers regarding COVID-19 stressors, the coping strategies page will automatically. On this page, there will be a list of stress-relieving strategies, which numerous people used/use to cope with COVID-19-related stress. The participants will mark the strategies that they normally use. In case a participant uses different strategies, then they will enter the strategies in a textbox provided. After submitting responses on this page, the participants will be redirected to a “Thank You” page. On this page, the participants will be thanked for taking their time to participate in the study. Since participation will not be paid, useful information about preventing COVID-19 will be provided along with links that will direct participants to websites with more information about COVID-19 and its prevention, like CDC and WHO.
References
Gelling L. (2016). Applying for ethical approval for research: the main issues. Nursing Standard, 30 (20), 40–44. doi: 10.7748/ns.30.20.40.s46
Grubic, N., Badovinac, S., & Johri, A. M. (2020). Student mental health in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic: A call for further research and immediate solutions. The International Journal of Social Psychiatry , 66 (5), 517–518. doi:10.1177/0020764020925108
Kecojevic, A., Basch, C. H., Sullivan, M., & Davi, N. K. (2020). The impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on mental health of undergraduate students in New Jersey, cross-sectional study. PloS ONE , 15 (9), e0239696. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0239696
Khan, A. H., Sultana, M. S., Hossain, S., Hasan, M. T., Ahmed, H. U., & Sikder, M. T. (2020). The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on mental health & well-being among home-quarantined Bangladeshi students: A cross-sectional pilot study. Journal of Affective Disorders , 277 , 121–128. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2020.07.135
Lai, A. Y., Lee, L., Wang, M. P., Feng, Y., Lai, T. T., Ho, L. M., Lam, V. S., Ip, M. S., & Lam, T. H. (2020). Mental Health Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on International University Students, Related Stressors, and Coping Strategies. Frontiers in Psychiatry , 11 , 584240 . doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2020.584240
Nijhawan, L. P., Janodia, M. D., Muddukrishna, B. S., Bhat, K. M., Bairy, K. L., Udupa, N., & Musmade, P. B. (2013). Informed consent: Issues and challenges. Journal of Advanced Pharmaceutical Technology & Research , 4 (3), 134–140. doi: 10.4103/2231-4040.116779
Son, C., Hegde, S., Smith, A., Wang, X., & Sasangohar, F. (2020). Effects of COVID-19 on College Students' Mental Health in the United States: Interview Survey Study. Journal of Medical Internet Research , 22 (9), e21279 . doi: 10.2196/21279
