Aleksander Aristovnik (Author), Dejan Ravšelj (Author), Lan Umek (Author), Nina Tomaževič (Author)

Abstract

Trauma scientists have raised the alarm about the devastating consequences of the Ukraine war on mental health. We examined how higher education students—as indirect victims—coped with this conflict and how they emotionally reacted during 2022. We involved 2314 students from 16 countries through an online survey. A structural equation model indicated significant relations between war-related worry about military and macroeconomics domains and two coping strategies (opposition, support giving), in turn significantly linked with six emotions. The model was strongly invariant across gender, study field, and geographic area. The most frequent emotions were anger and anxiety, followed by two future-centred emotions (hopelessness and hope). Emotions were more frequent for females and students of the countries geographically close to the war region. Our findings call for evidence-based policy recommendations to be implemented by institutions to combat the negative short and long-term psychological sequelae of being witnesses of armed conflicts.

Keywords

Ukraine war;higher education students;mental health;consequences;coping strategies;emotions;

Data

Language: English
Year of publishing:
Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
Organization: UL FU - Faculty of Administration
UDC: 378-057.875:355.01(477):159.944.4
COBISS: 192509443 Link will open in a new window
ISSN: 2045-2322
Views: 17
Downloads: 1
Average score: 0 (0 votes)
Metadata: JSON JSON-RDF JSON-LD TURTLE N-TRIPLES XML RDFA MICRODATA DC-XML DC-RDF RDF

Other data

Secondary language: Slovenian
Secondary keywords: vojna v Ukrajini;študenti;duševno zdravje;posledice;strategije spoprijemanja s stresom;čustva;
Type (COBISS): Article
Pages: str. 1-11
Issue: ǂVol. ǂ14
Chronology: 2024
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-59009-3
ID: 23434971