Do demographic and socio-economic factors predict Sense of Coherence among university students?

INTRODUCTION: The COVID-19 pandemic and related containment measures have been threatful for psychological well-being, particularly for young people such as university students. Sense of Coherence (SoC) can help in coping with stressful and anxiety-provoking situations. AIM: The aim of this study is to describe the levels of SoC and to investigate the socio-economic, and demographic predictors in a sample of students attending Florence University, in the timespan between August, 17th and October, 3rd 2020. METHOD AND RESULTS: The cross-sectional online survey was completed by 2,996 students. Higher levels of SoC have been found among males and for respondents reporting a better socioeconomic condition. Regarding the dimensions of SoC, lower levels were reported for comprehensibility and manageability, higher for meaningfulness. CONCLUSIONS: These results reinforce the need to plan and implement health promotion interventions aimed to support and sustain university students in general and specifically those at higher risk of low level of SoC.

Digital Health Literacy and Information-Seeking in the Era of COVID-19: Gender Differences Emerged from a Florentine University Experience.

Gender appears to be a strong predictor of online health information-seeking behaviour (OHISB), which is related to Digital Health Literacy (DHL). Gender differences in OHISB have been studied in different countries with different results, but no studies have investigated gender-specific OHISB among University students during the COVID-19 pandemic. We sought to investigate any gender differences in OHISB in the period between the first and second waves of the pandemic in Italian university students. A questionnaire developed by the global COVID-HL network, including existing and adapted validated scales and self-developed scales, was administered to 2996 University students in Florence. Gender differences were tested using the χ2 test or the Mann-Whitney U test. Male students reported a higher score in DHL than females (p < 0.001). However, female students seek COVID-19 information more often on different sources (for themselves and other people), on various topics, consider various aspects of information quality to be "very important'' (p < 0.05) and are more likely to be "often dissatisfied'' or "partly satisfied'' with information (p < 0.001). Our study confirmed gender as an important dimension to explain students' OHISB differences, which could help institutions promote gender-specific education programmes and provide gender-oriented health information.