Mental health of French students during the Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

This study evaluates the impact of Covid-19 on the mental health of 8004 French students in the East part of France, which has been the first and hardest hit region by the Covid-19 pandemic. This is, to our knowledge, the largest study conducted on mental health of students during the pandemic. Our results show that students suffer from particularly high level of anxiety, depression and distress. A significant proportion of students might require psychological support, especially because the high distress scores suggest that the epidemic and confinement have favored the emergence of post-traumatic stress symptoms.