Abstract
Objective
The outbreak of the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) caused considerable public health problems. Departing from the case of COVID-19, this paper aims to not only find out the psychological impacts of the changes in universities’ educational programs on undergraduate students in Turkey but also make a scientific contribution to determining what kinds of supports can be given to university students in other possible social catastrophes that could take place in any future time.
Material- Methods
1117 university students over the age of 17 from 23 universities took part in this study by completing the online questionnaire we prepared on the Internet. The relationship between university students’ stress and anxiety levels and their age, gender and class year were examined.
Result
While average BAI scores of male students were 11.56, female students’ average BAI scores were 16.65. Average STAI-1 points of male and female students were 46,71 and 49,04, respectively. As a result, it was found that there were significant differences between BAI and STAI-1 scores of male and female students.(p<0.05)
Conclusion
''Our study found that more than two/three of the university students suffered from anxiety symptoms during the COVID-19 outbreak.'. In this regard, it can said that university students should learn to deal with such mental and emotional problems as stress, anxiety and fear, which more likely require psychological and physical effort, by taking necessary measures during important social catastrophes such as Covid-19 outbreak.