Eating disorders and anxiety in students during the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional study

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Due to the 2019 coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, worldwide daily life has profoundly disrupted, with profound negative effects on physical and mental health, pri-marily in the student population. Objetive To determine the prevalence of eating disorder (ED) risk and anxiety levels in college students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, to explore the association of ED and anxiety with gender, age, semester, and educa-tional program variables. Materials and methods: A descriptive cross-sectional correlational study was conducted in a non-probabilistic con-venience sample of 572 students from a university in north-western Mexico, with prior informed consent. An online ques-tionnaire was designed using the Google Forms platform that included four identification questions, the Eating Attitudes Test 26 (EAT-26) instrument and the BAI Anxiety Inventory. Descriptive statistics, Chi-square test were calculated to ex-plore the association between categorical variables and Odds Ratio (OR) and confidence interval were calculated by logistic regression considering as dependent variables risk of ED and presence of anxiety in the models. Results: Given the cut-off point of 20 for the EAT-26, 20.1% of students were found to be at risk of developing ED. The risk was significantly higher in females (22.4%) compared to males (14.7%) (chi 2(1) = 4.39;p < .001, Phi =-0.088). Moderate level of anxiety predominated in 32.2% of students and severe in 24.3%. The risk of ED may increase up to four times more if anxiety symptoms are present (OR = 2.179;95%CI 1.20, 3.97). Conclusions: A significant portion of respondents pre-sented risky eating behaviors associated in the levels of anx-iety displayed during the pandemic.