COVID's Mixed Impact on Graduate Behavioral Health Students

Picture this: 83 graduate-level students, scattered across two universities, are all enrolled in different behavioral health programs. These include clinical mental health counseling, marriage and family therapy, psychiatric nursing, and social work. They all have one major thing in common these days - the COVID-19 pandemic. To get a better handle on how this virus has affected their lives, these students filled out something called the Epidemic-Pandemic Impacts Inventory (EPII). What did they find?Well, it turns out that COVID-19 has touched almost every aspect of their lives, with about 14 different areas negatively impacted. Screen time went way up, family celebrations and travel plans got canceled, and that's just the start. But it's not all doom and gloom. Quite a few students reported some positives too, like a renewed appreciation for personal health. For educators, this means they need to stay flexible and keep adapting to support their students through these challenging times.