Coping and emotions of global higher education students to the Ukraine war worldwide

Daniela Raccanello, Roberto Burro, Aleksander Aristovnik*, Dejan Ravšelj*, Lan Umek*, Giada Vicentini, Rob Hall, Chiara Buizza, Muhammad Ayub Buzdar, Surobhi Chatterjee, Nicola Cucari, Beata Dobrowolska, Ana Teresa Ferreira-Oliveira, Thais França, Alberto Ghilardi, Fany Inasius, Sujita Kumar Kar, Konstantinos Karampelas, Andrii Kuzyshyn, Florin LazărJuan D. Machin-Mastromatteo, Maria Malliarou, Bertil P. Marques, Silvia Mariela Méndez-Prado, Cristina Mollica, Alka Obadić, Olawale Festus Olaniyan, Ana Sofia Rodrigues, Giulio Sbravati, Aleksandra Vasić, Ana-Maria Zamfir, Nina Tomaževič*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

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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.

Original languageEnglish
Article number8561
Pages (from-to)1-11
Number of pages11
JournalScientific Reports
Volume14
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2024

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