A I studied yesterday In Borders shows that university students experienced increased psychological distress during COVID-19, but used fewer mental health support services. This is the first known study to use a national dataset to compare mental health service use before and after the pandemic.

More students in the United States have suffered from mental health problems during the pandemic, but fewer have received needed mental health care.

“More U.S. students suffered from mental health problems during the pandemic, but fewer received necessary mental health treatment,” said first study author Elaine Russell of the College of Public Health. George Mason University, in a study. press release of this school.

Results were based on data from fall 2019, early spring 2020, and spring 2021 surveys. Participants were limited to full-time undergraduate students ages 18 to 24 attending four-year universities in the UNITED STATES. A total of 88,986 people completed the National College Health Assessment before the COVID-19 pandemic, and 96,489 completed it during the pandemic.

High levels of stress during the pandemic

Participants completed a survey to assess mental health, stress, and loneliness, and were asked how and if they accessed mental health services on campus. Across all measures, mental health was worse in 2021 compared to 2019 and 2020. Of note, rates of students experiencing serious psychological distress increased from 19.0% before the pandemic to 26.8% during spring 2021.

“During the peak of COVID-19, 82.4% of students reported experiencing moderate to high stress in the past 30 days, compared to 75.8% pre-COVID-19, which was also found statistically significant,” the authors wrote.

Due in part to campus closures, student use rates of on-campus mental health services decreased from 58.6% to 44.4%, and service use rates in the local community close to campus decreased from 24.8% to 21.9%.

Non-white students and male students were less likely to use mental health services after the pandemic began than female students.

“This research study is important because it helps identify students most at risk for psychological distress and least likely to access needed mental health services,” the authors concluded.