ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Public Mental Health
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1512074
How loneliness impacts depression among Chinese college students throughout COVID-19: mediators of death anxiety and negative affect
Provisionally accepted
- Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
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Background: The COVID-19 pandemic, which is considered a public crisis, has profoundly affected the psychological well-being, behavioral patterns, and daily routines of individuals across the globe. Throughout the pandemic, the specter of death anxiety, triggered by the virus, has been an ever-present shadow, constantly haunting the minds of people and causing a significant impact on their mental health. Previous studies have indicated that the practice of home isolation during the pandemic led to a substantial rise in loneliness, especially among the student population, potentially precipitating depressive emotions during COVID-19. The present study aimed to investigate the influence of loneliness on depressive symptoms in Chinese college students during the COVID-19 pandemic with two mediators: death anxiety and negative affect. Methods: This study employed a cross-sectional online design, collecting data from Chinese university students in March 2020. All participants (N = 646; age M = 19.960, SD = 1.801; 49.690% males and 50.310% females) completed the UCLA Loneliness Scale, Self-rating Depression Scale, Templer Death Anxiety Scale in COVID-19 Context, and Negative Affect Scale. Multiple mediation analysis was utilized to analyze the data. Results: The results of this research revealed two vital findings. First, loneliness was positively correlated with death anxiety (r = .212, p < .001), negative affect (r = .317, p < .001), and depression (r = .545, p < .001). The chain mediation model showed that the risk factors of death anxiety and negative affect act as mediators in the link between loneliness and depression. This suggests that college students with higher levels of loneliness experienced increased death anxiety and negative affect, which subsequently increased depression. Conclusion: Our research offers valuable insights into the link between loneliness and depression throughout COVID-19. The findings not only enrich the empirical literature on mental health in the context of pandemics—by revealing the serial mediating role of death anxiety and negative affect— but also provide practical implications for targeted mental health interventions.
Keywords: loneliness1, depression2, Death anxiety3, Negative affect4, College students5
Received: 16 Oct 2024; Accepted: 04 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lv, Feng, Tan, Li, Liu and Gao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Dingguo Gao, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
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