Proceedings of The 6th International Academic Conference on Humanities and Social Sciences
Year: 2021
DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.33422/6th.iachss.2021.11.10
The impact of mentoring intervention during COVID-19 in mental health of vulnerable students: Results from International Hellenic University
Despina A. Gkika, Eleni Dalla2, Panagiotis Samaras, D. V. Bandekas, Evridiki Zachopoulou
ABSTRACT:
The spread of COVID-19 has resulted in increased levels of fear, stress, and depression, affecting multiple groups, including university students, who have to also address the fear of not completing their studies due to the various lockdown measures. Mentoring has been identified as an effective solution addressing academic requirements. This work aims to study the extent of the effect of COVID-19 on vulnerable university students and how a mentoring plan may mitigate the situation, while covering the literature gap on the studied subject in Greece. The study protocol incorporates a section dedicated to reviewing the anxiety/repression levels of students after the pandemic, using the Duke Anxiety-Depression scale. The results suggested that female participants expressed higher levels of fear and depression than male participants, as a result of the pandemic. The noted depression levels might be directly attributed to being afraid and stressed due to COVID-19, and indirectly to increased anxiety. This work accentuates the impact of the intricate connections between factors such as anxiety and stress on the appearance of depression and how they can affect strategies intending to address this disorder. These findings underline the importance of a mentor in defining the research route of their mentee and the general significance of mentoring.
keywords: Covid 19, Mental health, University students, Mentoring, Duke scale.