Exploring the coping mechanisms adopted by university students to deal with symptoms of anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

University students’ mental health has been negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic (Vigo et al., 2021). The aim of this study was to explore the coping mechanisms adopted by university students against symptoms of anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 91 university students took part in this study. Their responses were collected through snowball sampling by distributing the questionnaire on social media. Respondents consisted of 68 females, 20 males, and 3 who were marked as ‘other’. The age range of participants was 18 to 55. The Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (Hamilton, 1959; HAM-A) and the Brief COPE Inventory (Carver, 1997) were used to assess the severity of symptoms of anxiety and the coping strategies utilised by university students. Data analysis was conducted through SPSS, using descriptive tests, and parametric and non-parametric tests. The findings revealed that university students exhibited moderate levels of anxiety (M= 17.95, SD= 8.92), and engaged moderately in problem-focused (M= 19.75, SD= 5.59) and emotion-focused (M= 28.98, SD= 5.52) coping strategies, with less utilisation of avoidant coping strategies (M= 15.96, SD= 4.2). The course of participants was found to be associated to anxiety scores, but not to age. There was no association found between coping scores and the course of participants, however avoidant coping scores seemed to be utilised somewhat more frequently in undergraduate students. There was also no association found between coping scores and age, with the exception of avoidant coping scores. Avoidant coping strategies were also found to predict the severity of anxiety. This study shed light on the necessity for further research on university students’ anxiety and their coping mechanisms. It also supported the idea that university students’ mental health, may have been affected by the pandemic as also reflected in the existing literature.