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Distress of tertiary education students in Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic
David Tuck1, Joshua Wiley2, Lefteris Patlamazoglou1
1School of Educational Psychology and Counseling, Faculty of Education, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Objective:
This project sought to characterize levels of distress in Australian tertiary education students during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Methods:
Advertisements were placed on multiple participant recruitment and student run websites associated with various tertiary institutions. Level of overall distress was assessed with the K-10 so that comparisons could be made with previous research. A total of 1072 tertiary education students 18 years or older participated in the study.
Results:
70.9% of tertiary education students studying in Australia displayed elevated levels of psychological distress during the pandemic, with 23.01% of the sample reporting extreme levels of distress.
Conclusions:
More tertiary education students experienced severe distress during the COVID-19 pandemic than adults in the general population, as well as before the pandemic.
Implications:
Services are needed to help tertiary education students cope with elevated levels of distress associated during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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