Factors Influencing Depression and Mental Distress Related to COVID-19 Among University Students in China: Online Cross-sectional Mediation Study

Yanqiu Yu   ^{1 *} , PhD ;   Rui She   ^{1 *} , PhD ;   Sitong Luo   ¹ , PhD ;   Meiqi Xin   ¹ , PhD ;   Lijuan Li   ² , MPA ;   Suhua Wang   ³ , PhD ;   Le Ma   ⁴ , PhD ;   Fangbiao Tao   ⁵ , PhD ;   Jianxin Zhang   ⁶ , MSc ;   Junfeng Zhao   ⁷ , PhD ;   Liping Li   ⁸ , PhD ;   Dongsheng Hu   ^{9, 10} , PhD ;   Guohua Zhang   ¹¹ , PhD ;   Jing Gu   ¹² , PhD ;   Danhua Lin   ¹³ , PhD ;   Hongmei Wang   ¹⁴ , PhD ;   Yong Cai   ¹⁵ , PhD ;   Zhaofen Wang   ¹⁶ , MSc ;   Hua You   ¹⁷ , PhD ;   Guoqing Hu   ¹⁸ , PhD ;   Joseph Tak-Fai Lau   ¹ , PhD

¹ Centre for Health Behaviours Research, Jockey Club School of Public Health and Primary Care, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China (Hong Kong)

² School of Public Health, Dali University, Kunming, China

³ Graduate School of Baotou Medical College, Baotou Medical College, Baotou, China

⁴ Health Science Center, School of Public Health, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China

⁵ Department of Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health, School of Public Health, Hefei, China

⁶ School of Public Health, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China

⁷ Department of Psychology, School of Education, Henan University, Kaifeng, China

⁸ Shantou Medical College, Shantou, China

⁹ Department of Epidemiology and Health Statistics, College of Public Health, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China

¹⁰ Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Shenzhen University Health Science Center, Shenzhen, China

¹¹ Department of Psychology, School of Psychiatry, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China

¹² Department of Medical Statistics, School of Public Health, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China

¹³ Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

¹⁴ School of Public Health, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China

¹⁵ School of Public Health, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China

¹⁶ Public Health Department, Qinghai University Medical College, Xining, China

¹⁷ Department of Social Medicine and Health Education, School of Public Health, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China

¹⁸ Department of Epidemiology of Health Statistics, Xiangya School of Public Health, Central South University, Changsha, China

*these authors contributed equally