摘要：The COVID-19 pandemic led to a shutdown of universities in Germany. In a longitudinal design, we compared mental health (depression, anxiety, somatic complaints) of university students in Germany before (June to August 2019) and in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic (June 2020) and determined the impact of pandemic-related stress and loneliness on students’ mental health in self-report online surveys. We investigated 443 participants (mean age 22.8 years), among them 77% female, and 10.4% medical students. A small increase of depression mean scores was observed (
F(1,420) = 5.21;
p = .023), anxiety and somatic complaints have not significantly changed. There was a medium increase in loneliness from pre-pandemic scores to the pandemic situation (
F(1,423) = 30.56;
p < .001). Analyzed with regression analyses, current loneliness and pre-pandemic distress represented the strongest associations with mental health during the pandemic. Additionally, health-related concerns during the pandemic were associated with symptoms of depression [
b = 0.21; 95%CI(0.08; 0.34);
t = 3.12;
p = .002
