Natural language processing analysis applied to COVID-19 open-text opinions using a distilBERT model for sentiment categorization.

COVID-19 is a disease that affects the quality of life in all aspects. However, the government policy applied in 2020 impacted the lifestyle of the whole world. In this sense, the study of sentiments of people in different countries is a very important task to face future challenges related to lockdown caused by a virus. To contribute to this objective, we have proposed a natural language processing model with the aim to detect positive and negative feelings in open-text answers obtained from a survey in pandemic times. We have proposed a distilBERT transformer model to carry out this task. We have used three approaches to perform a comparison, obtaining for our best model the following average metrics: Accuracy: 0.823, Precision: 0.826, Recall: 0.793 and F1 Score: 0.803.

The early impact of the global lockdown on post-secondary students and staff: A global, descriptive study.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to gain a preliminary, broad-level understanding of how the first lockdown impacted post-secondary students, faculty, and staff worldwide. METHODS: The data were obtained via a global online cross-sectional questionnaire survey using a mixed-method design and disseminated to university students, faculty, and staff from April to November 2020. The data were categorized in four themes/categories: (1) social life and relationships, (2) access to services, (3) health experiences, and (4) impact on mental health well-being. RESULTS: The survey included 27,804 participants from 121 countries and 6 continents. The majority of participants were from Europe (73.6%), female (59.2%), under 30 years of age (64.0%), living in large urban areas (61.3%), %), and from middle-income families (66.7%). Approximately 28.4% of respondents reported that the lockdown negatively impacted their social life, while 21.2% reported the lockdown had a positive impact. A total of 39.2% reported having issues accessing products or services, including essentials, such as groceries, or medical services. In addition, respondents reported an increase in stress and anxiety levels and a decrease in quality of life during the first 2 weeks of the lockdown. CONCLUSIONS: The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown measures had an evident impact on the lives of post-secondary students, faculty, and staff. Further research is required to inform and improve policies to support these populations at both institutional and national levels.