The Impact of Anxiety and Depression on the Quality of Life of the university Students: the Slovak experience
Authors: Petrovic F. , Guttesen K. , Furgas M. , Kralik R. 
Published: February 2025

Aim. This paper explores the relationship between the two
closely related phenomena of health and quality of life. Health
has a physical and mental form, mental diseases are divided
into several groups: a) no mental diseases, b) anxiety and depression and c) suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts. The
paper is focused on the mental health of university students,
especially on the category of students experiencing anxiety
and depression and the impact of these mental diseases on thequality of life. It is based on a non-medical understanding of
health, based on self-reported health by individuals. The numbers of people suffering from depression before the outbreak
of the pandemic in Europe and in the world are given. The
recently ended COVID-19 pandemic had a robust impact on
all segments of society, including the concept of the quality of
life. Several unresolved epistemological questions related to
the quality of life are presented. Anxiety and depression are
illnesses, in the context of the quality of life they are related
to ill-being. This knowledge questions the identification of the
quality of life with well-being. Three goals are formulated.
The first is to explore how perceived anxiety and depression
affected students’ quality of life during the pandemic. The second goal is to measure the quality of life of students affected
by anxiety and depression and compare it with the quality of
life of all students participating in the research. The third goal
is to discover which of the variables are predictors of anxiety
and depression and which are predictors of the quality of life.
Results. The higher the values of suicidal expressions, the
lower the values of pre-pandemic relationships, health, quality of life and trust, and vice versa. Because the category ‘suicidal behavior’ belongs to the ‘negative indicators’, the variables quality of life, health, relationships before the pandemic
and trust are its predictors. Furthermore, in women, ‘Suicidal
manifestations’ are positively correlated with all life variables, which can surprisingly be interpreted as the fact that the
growth of suicidal manifestations is accompanied by an increase in confidence with a large correlation, an increase in the
quality of life, health and social relationships with a medium
correlation. Because the category ‘Suicidal manifestations’
belongs to the ‘negative indicators’, variables trust, quality of
life, health and social relations are not its predictors. Up to
three levels of subheading are permitted. Subheadings should
not be numbered.
Method. The present study applies both secondary and primary research. On the one hand, the present researchers base
the data on Eurostat, WHO, and large-scale studies, and, on
the other hand, the variables are determined by primary data
from an online questionnaire in which university students in
Slovakia indicate answers on the Cantril scale of 0-10. The
questions are listed in the appendix. The key questions are focused on the impact of the pandemic on the psyche and the
quality of life.
Conclusion. The research took place in the months of April,
May and June 2022. Students of bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral studies at Slovak universities participated in it, N=389.
Attention is focused on students who felt anxiety and depression. Variables that can be assumed to influence the quality
of life and mental health of university students are identified. These variables are anxiety and depression, quality of life and
further health (both physical and mental), social relationships,
relationships with the loved ones before the pandemic, and
trust. The inclusion of health, anxiety and depression and
quality of life is related to the focus of this paper. The variables – social relations, relations with the closest ones before
the pandemic and trust – express social capital. Together with
lifestyle, this is a factor influencing the relationship between
physical and mental health. Loneliness as a form of social relationships is a strong predictor of worsening mental health.