Mental health disorders and pandemic context: a multidisciplinary approach of psychological response trajectories and factors of resilience in university students – REUNI

Civilization-related diseases constitute a major public health issue. Among them, psychiatric disorders associated with stress are constantly increasing are likely to alter the immune response to infections. In France, mental disorders now represent the first item of expenditure in the general health insurance scheme by pathology, ahead of cancer and cardiovascular diseases. The Hauts-de-France (HdF) region, particularly marked by these disorders and their health, social and economic consequences, has thus given an important place to mental health in the last regional health project. However, the Covid-19 pandemic, a major source of stress for the population, further increases the difficulty of the challenge facing the region. Indeed, the COSAMe study, which we are conducting through a partnership between the Lille Neuroscience & Cognition center (U1172) and the National Center for Resources and Resilience (CN2R), has shown high prevalence of reaction acute stress in the early stages of the pandemic (1st measurement phase) and post-traumatic stress disorder one month after the lifting of confinement (2nd measurement phase) in a particularly vulnerable population, the university students. These prevalence rates were increased in the HdF region. The results also indicated a major role of social factors: the more respondents reported a low quality of social ties maintained during confinement, the more severe symptoms they presented.
In this context, the objective of our project is threefold. The epidemiological axis will carry out a new mapping of the state of mental health of students at the University 1 year after confinement (3rd measurement time of the COSAMe study) through a new sending of an online questionnaire to students with the help of the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation. This axis will allow us to specify the trajectories of psychological response to the pandemic context. On the basis of preliminary results, 4 trajectories are expected: resilience (maintaining stable mental health over time), recovery (appearance of acute stress following the event which then disappears), chronicity (acute stress lasting) and delayed onset (delayed onset of symptoms). We will test the association between the factors collected and these trajectories and then explore in particular the socialization processes specific to each trajectory by means of a qualitative study (sociological axis), and the social cognition skills specific to each trajectory in terms of decoding emotional facial expressions and theory of mind using experimental online tasks (psychological axis). For each axis, we will carry out an analysis of the specificities specific to students in the HdF region.
This multidisciplinary project should make it possible to identify the factors of resilience and vulnerability specific to a population at risk of mental disorders in the current context. The identification of such factors should make it possible to issue recommendations intended for these students, but also for decision-makers in their way of managing this type of crisis.