20.500.12556/DKUM-88091 Depressive symptoms among Slovenian female tertiary students before and during the COVID-19 pandemic analysis of two repeated cross-sectional surveys in 2020 and 2021 The COVID-19 pandemic has adversely affected the mental health of the general population. This holds true especially for vulnerable groups, including young people, students, and females. Our study examined cross-sectional changes in depressive symptoms from immediately before the COVID-19 pandemic (January/February 2020) to the second wave of the epidemic in Slovenia (January/February 2021) among female tertiary students. A multivariate analysis of two repeated cross-sectional surveys was performed using relatively homogeneous samples. The pooled sample included 418 young adult female students (Mage = 21.21 years). Depressed affect items were used to measure depressive symptomatology. All three feelings indicating depressed affect increased substantially and significantly from 2020 to 2021: feeling depressed (23% vs. 38%), lonely (16% vs. 43%), and sad (21% vs. 49%). In 2021, female students had almost a three-fold increase in the odds of reporting at least two out of three depressed affect symptoms compared to 2020 (19% vs. 43%; aOR 2.97; 95% CI 1.59–5.54; p < 0.001), adjusted for sociodemographic and socioeconomic confounders. Our findings suggest that Slovenian female students’ mental health deteriorated during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Public health professionals’ efforts to combat the pandemic’s mental health-related negative short-term and potential long-term impacts should thus focus on young people, especially on younger female students. depressive symptoms depressed affect students covid-19 mental health pandemic simptomi depresivnosti depresija študenti covid-19 duševno zdravje pandemija true true true MDPI Angleški jezik Slovenski jezik Članek v reviji 2024-04-09 13:45:34 2024-04-09 13:58:39 2024-05-07 13:49:23 0000-00-00 00:00:00 2023 0 0 Str. 1-13 Št. 18, št. članka 13776 Letn. 15 2023 0000-00-00 Zaloznikova Objavljeno NiDoloceno 2023-05-31 2023-09-14 2023-09-15 316.346.32:159.974 165088259 10.3390/su151813776 2071-1050 Kirbis-2023-Depressive_Symptoms_among_Slovenia.pdf Kirbis-2023-Depressive_Symptoms_among_Slovenia.pdf 1 DD3B1CC4BBDB05A840110263C4EF3401 bd8b01146702472aa408518dc072253c4edcb73f6f887a4b6326c7baf976e9b1 523f97ae-f668-11ee-9d31-00155d000105 https://dk.um.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=178131 https://doi.org/10.3390/su151813776 0 b7ab124d-f666-11ee-9d31-00155d000105 https://dk.um.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=178127 Filozofska fakulteta 0 0 0