Do resilience and social support buffer Vietnamese college students’ mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic? A pilot study

ABSTRACTThis pilot study aimed to investigate college students’ mental health during the peak of COVID-19 pandemic in Vietnam and its associated factors, such as resilience and perceived social support. A total of 101 college students completed an online survey on Qualtrics in the last quarter of 2021, when Vietnam was under social distancing measures. The results show that, at the peak of the pandemic, more than 80% of college students in the study reported at least mild depression, with very high prevalence of mild and moderate depression (39.44% and 30.99% respectively). Resilience and perceived social support were associated with each other, and both were found to buffer students’ mental health, yet resilience became an insignificant predictor when other covariates were added to the linear regression model. This pilot study prepares for the development of the larger study to develop resilience training programme for college students to cope with emergency situations.KEYWORDS: Vietnamese college studentsmental healthresiliencesocial supportCOVID-19 Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).articleAdditional informationFundingThe work was supported by the Vietnam National University’s University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Hanoi .Notes on contributorsTrang Thu NguyenTrang Thu Nguyen, PhD, MSW, is currently a social work faculty at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, where she previously earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in social work. She completed her doctoral training in social work at the University of South Carolina and postdoctoral training at the Center for Studies of Displaced Populations, Department of Global Community Health and Behavioral Sciences, Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. Her research interests include mental health problems, such as depression and dementia, as well as resilience and coping among older adults and their family caregivers. She is also interested in culturally competent, community-based, and art-based interventions for these groups. She has worked on several research projects on mental health problems and sociopsychological treatments for adults with mental disorders in Vietnam, as well as situations of and interventions for dementia family caregivers in Vietnam and the United States.