Risk and Protective Factors of College Students’ Psychological Well-Being During the COVID-19 Pandemic - Emotional Stability, Mental Health, and Household Resources

Oct 15, 2026

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The study investigates how college students’ emotional sentiments and psychological well-being changed from before to after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on both risk and protective factors. Using experience sampling data from 120 undergraduates, the research analyzes intraindividual trajectories with attention to prior mental health impairments, trait emotional stability, subjective socioeconomic status, parental education, and household resources. Results indicate limited emotional change, with specific predictors related to emotions and household resources linked to levels and emotion changes.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryHealthcare

FormatPDF

Pages26

Reading Time1 h 6 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Pandemic impact on college students’ mental health

Risk and protective factors in emotional coping

Study design and measurement approach

AERA Open January-December 2022, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 1–26 DOI: 10. 1177/23328584211065725 Article reuse guidelines: [sagepub.com/journals-permissions](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[ ](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)© The Author(s) 2022. [https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero](https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero) Risk and Protective Factors of College Students’ Psychological Well-Being During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Emotional Stability, Mental Health, and Household Resources Julia Moeller Leipzig University Luise von Keyserlingk Technical University Dortmund University of California, Irvine Marion Spengler Medical School Berlin Hanna Gaspard Technical University Dortmund University of Tübingen Hye Rin Lee University of California, Irvine Katsumi Yamaguchi-Pedroza University of California, Irvine Pennsylvania State University Renzhe Yu University of California, Irvine Christian Fischer University of California, Irvine University of Tübingen Richard Arum University of California, Irvine Colleges and universities have increasingly worried in recent decades about college students’well-being, with the COVID-19 pandemic aggravating these concerns. Our study examines changes to undergraduate emotional sentiments and psychological well-being from before to after the onset of the pandemic. In addition, we explore whether certain risk factors (i.e., prior mental health impairments, trait emotional stability) and protective factors (i.e., subjective socioeconomic status, parental education, household resources) predicted students’ emotions and their intraindividual changes due to the pandemic onset. We compared experience sampling method data from 120 students from before and after the pandemic onset, examining intraindividual trajectories. There was only little change in students’ emotions. Prior mental health impairment and trait emotional stability predicted students’emotions, averaged across time points, but not emotion changes. Few associations with Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License ([https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages ([https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage](https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage)). Moeller et al. emotions were found for subjective socioeconomic status and parental education, but study-related household resources predicted levels and changes in emotions. Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic, college students, psychological well-being, emotions, experience sampling method, personality, intraindividual trajectories Introduction Concerns about college and university students’ psychological well-being and mental health have increased in recent decades in the United States (Eisenberg et al., 2009; Lipsonet al., 2019; Liu et al., 2019; Walters et al., 2018) . This concern became heightened in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, which affected the lives of the entire population, including the academic and social experiences of college students (Browning et al., 2021; Huckins et al., 2020) . In addition to more general worries concerning health, personal income, and the economy, college students were affected by the closures and the rapid shift to online teaching. Furthermore, many students were forced to move back in with their parents during a time of many restrictions and constraints, such as restricted contact to nonhousehold members, reduced social activities and home-schooled siblings. With the increase in stressors came a decrease in psychological well-being and an increase in mental health issues. While already elevated in previous years (American College Healt

FAQs

What does the study examine about college students during the COVID-19 pandemic?

It examines changes in undergraduate emotional sentiments and psychological well-being from before to after the pandemic onset, including intraindividual emotional trajectories.

Which factors are treated as risk and protective in the analysis?

Risk factors include prior mental health impairments and trait emotional stability, while protective factors include subjective socioeconomic status, parental education, and study-related household resources.

What key results are reported about emotional change and predictors?

Emotional sentiments showed only little change. Prior mental health impairment and trait emotional stability predicted students’ emotions on average, while household resources predicted emotional levels and changes.

Oct 15, 2026

Upload by Adam