Intrapersonal competence, mental health and well-being of university students under COVID-19: Findings based on a study in Hong Kong

Background: As the global community is adjusting to the "post-COVID-19" era, where the "visible" economic and physical health damage of the epidemic has been relatively well-discussed, more attention should be turned to the "invisible" psychological impact of this crisis. As a vulnerable group experiencing academic stress, financial stress, peer and supervisor absence associated with distance learning, as well as the likelihood of spatial resource strife and family conflict arising from home isolation, the mental health of university students should be examined. This issue is particularly acute in Hong Kong where COVID-19 stress is mixed with the stress arising from the Social Event taking place in 2019-2020. Hence, we have conducted a study to examine how intrapersonal competence in university students is related to their mental health and well-being. Based on the Positive Youth Development (PYD) approach, we expected that while there would be a negative relationship between intrapersonal competence and negative student mental health (e.g., depression), the link between intrapersonal competence and student well-being would be a positive one under the pandemic.

Methods: A quota sampling method was employed to recruit undergraduate students (N=978) from July to August 2022. The participants responded to an online questionnaire. The questionnaire contains measures of Intrapersonal competence (indexed by beliefs of adversity, resilience, and emotional competence), negative mental health (including measures of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, suicidal behavior, internet addiction, and hopelessness), and well-being (measured by life satisfaction, flourishing). Structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis was performed using Mplus to examine the hypothesized relationships among these variables.

Findings: Results revealed that the proposed model showed a good fit to the data. While belief of adversity had a negative effect on negative mental health, it had a positive effect on flourishing and life satisfaction. For resilience, although it did not have a significant effect on negative mental health, it positively predicted flourishing and life satisfaction. In addition, while emotional competence negatively predicted negative mental health, it had a positive effect on flourishing.

Discussion: This study provides support for the hypothesis that nurturing young people's intrapersonal competence, particularly resilience, beliefs of adversity and emotional competence, contributes to their flourishing and life satisfaction, as well as protecting them from negative mental health. We argue that it would be helpful to nurture the intrapersonal competence of the students so that they can have more capabilities to cope with life adversities such as the COVID-19 pandemic. However, such initiatives should be carried out before the occurrence of the pandemic.