The results of the survey of 1,017 back-to-Wuhan college students indicated that the prevalence rates of anxiety, depression, insomnia, and distress were 44%, 47.5%, 37.7%, and 57.7%, respectively, which were higher than those during the non-epidemic periods[21, 22]. It has been demonstrated that the increasing number of confirmed cases, suspected cases, the outbreak rebounded in other provinces or countries [30] and the continuous negative news reports about the COVID19 [31], have incited people to worry about the future trend of the epidemic, leading to people’s anxiety, depression.
Previous studies have shown that the psychological health of college students under the influence of public health emergencies to a large extent, [15, 32, 33] on account of the college students’ easier access to information related to the pandemic[34], lack of experience in responding to public health emergencies, and their studies and future career development affected by the COVID-2019 [21].
Meanwhile, the result manifested the prevalence rates of anxiety, insomnia, and distress were significant different on college students of different ages and educational level, deriving from the greater pressure of scientific research of the master’s and doctoral students, longer home isolation time, worse scientific research environment, and lower efficiency. There were no system online psychological, academic, and employment guidance courses for college students. Similar studies have indicated that some household income might be affected, consequently, some students could concern sources for tuition due to the outbreak of the pandemic [35].
In accordance with the hypothesis, the quantile regression confirmed the degree of education level has a positive influence on depression. It reports that those suffering more from anxiety could worry about the negative influence of COVID-2019 on their academics and science research, indicating that the degree of education level is a sensitive indicator that affects the score of depression. The impact of years from graduation on insomnia and distress is negative, and the impact gradually becomes larger in the median and upper quantiles. The higher education level and the closer to graduation, the more anxiety, depression, insomnia, and distress the participants have. It might result from that limited ways of pressure release under closed management have affected the academic or employment development of college students near graduation.
Furthermore, it also classified and analyzed whether college students had ever been discriminated against due to the experience in Wuhan after returning to school, and the attitude on the future trend of COVID-2019. Due to experience related Wuhan city, some discrimination had also affected the mental health of college students to a certain extent, which is consistent with previous research results[36]. The results showed that there were differences in the level of mental health among college students with discrimination and worried about the rebound of the epidemic. It might be related to the stigmatization of Wuhan in the early stage of the epidemic[37]. At the same time, news of repeated fluctuations in the epidemic situation in Dalian, Beijing and other places would also affect the feeling of college students.
However, the gender on the prevalence rate was not significant difference, keeping with the previous research finding[20, 38], which might be caused by the narrowing of the gap of people’s access to education and information currently. But the majority of surveys conducted previously found the significant difference among the different gender, such as American male college students are easily depressed than female [39], on the contrary to Alansari’s research in Saudi Arabia [40]. To be further confirmed, the traditional views of many emotional women under the peer pressure and high expectation from society and family, might increase the risk of depression.
Although telephone and online chat psychiatric treatment were advocated during the COVID-19 pandemic [41], the universities should also pay more attention to the mental health of back-to-Wuhan college students, especially in Wuhan. At present, the psychological counseling centers for college students are passive, and they should actively carry out psychological interventions for students near graduation to understand the reasons behind and help them get out of their difficulties. This research innovatively chooses to investigate the mental health of college students returning to school in Wuhan in the post-epidemic period and proposes key associated factors of mental health, which is conducive to maintain the mental health of college students and provide education and management.
The current study has several limitations. First, quantile regression could capture the heterogeneous associations between mental health and explanatory variables, however, the cross-sectional survey was hard to deduce causal inference and had a certain amount of information offset. A longitudinal study could be performed in the further study. Secondly, the research only studied the mental health of back-to-Wuhan college students, and did not cover other parts of China, such as Beijing, Guangzhou, etc., which rebounded in a small range in the post-epidemic period. Third, owing to the unavailable sampling framework and close-off management of back-to-Wuhan college students, convenient sampling was used to collect data, which could not represent the interest population and existed bias. The sample size is not sufficiently representative, which may have a certain impact on the results. Then, the mental health variables were measured by maturity scales, while, self-report instruments might respond bias.