Examination of the psychological effects of Covid 19 on university students in Turkey one year later from the pandemic

Abstract This study aims to evaluate and compare the levels of depression, anxiety, stress, social media addiction, loneliness, and life satisfaction of university students for the pre-pandemic period and one year after Covid-19. Furthermore, aims to examine whether gender is a determinant in this comparison and to determine to what extent depression, anxiety, and stress are predicted by social media addiction, loneliness, life satisfaction, and tolerance to Covid-19. Participants consisted of 544 university students, 411 women (75.6%), and 133 (24.4%) men, aged between 18 and 40 (22.63-3.46). It was detected that the whole variables in the present study were related to each other. Also, there was a significant difference in favor of after Covid-19 between before and after Covid-19 scores in all of the variables of this study and this difference for some variables was higher in the female group. Additionally, it was observed tolerance to Covid-19, loneliness, social media addiction and satisfaction with life were predictors. Consequently, the difficulties brought by the pandemic may increase the susceptibility of depression, stress, and anxiety by affect loneliness and life satisfaction. Besides, the determination that women are more vulnerable in the face of difficulties related to Covid-19 may be associated that genders differ in the way they perceive and experience these difficulties.