Abstract:
At a time of transition into adulthood, tertiary study places additional stresses on the mental wellbeing of
students. The continual assessment, long teaching hours, and expectation of professionalism that is
expected from students within clinical programmes places even more burden on these students. Then in
2020, with the COVID-19 lockdown, there were significant changes to how these programs were delivered.
We surveyed the mental wellbeing of our undergraduate students in the Bachelor of Optometry and
Bachelor of Pharmacy programmes at the University of Auckland in 2019 and 2020. Using validated
screening questionnaires, we found a high level of anxiety and depression in both years, however, in 2020
following the lockdown, anxiety levels in our students decreased. We found that the leading stressor was
academic stress, and levels of anxiety were inversely correlated with perceived academic success.
Therefore, we believe the lockdown, which provided both a break from clinical stresses and a change in
teaching modality to online delivery, provided a period of relief, despite the potential stressful environment
regarding COVID-19. To help alleviate the high level of distress in our students, lessons could be learned
to decrease the stress levels in our students by continuing with alternative teaching and assessment
styles.