Within-person trends in anxiety, depression, and social isolation among first-year college students before and after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic

The present study aimed to differentiate groups based upon the ways undergraduate students at a large public university in the southeastern United States experienced depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and social isolation before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and how their experiences changed as the pandemic progressed. Specifically, current analyses examined within-person trends in mental health baseline and change values, identities of most likely class members, and associations among coping strategies used and latent profiles. First-year students were surveyed both before (October 2019 to February 2020) and after (June/July 2020) the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Baseline values and change scores in depression, anxiety, and social isolation were used as indicators in a latent profile analysis, which yielded a six-class solution. Additionally, associations among latent mental health profiles and coping strategies used during lockdown were examined. While most of the sample remained in the same moderate or low severity range in which they started, profiles also emerged in which students (a) began with low severity across indicators and increased substantially, (b) began in high distress and remained that way, and (c) began in extremely high distress and decreased to moderate levels of distress. Latent profile associations with coping strategy and identity revealed modest associations between the latent profiles with increasing distress and coping via substance use and negative emotion expression. Avoidance was the most widely endorsed coping strategy. Campus responses should consider tiered or flexible approaches to support a high degree of heterogeneity among student mental health presentations and coping strategies and prepare to swiftly enact a needs assessment to guide resource allocation in times of collective crisis, in addition to ongoing assessment and conversation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)

Anxiety · Coping (psychology) · Distress · Latent class model · Mental health · Pandemic · Public health · Social isolation · COVID-19 and Mental Health · Mental Health Research Topics · Mental Health via Writing