The current COVID-19 pandemic has affected people of all ages across the world both physically and psychologically. Understanding COVID-19’s impact on university students’ mental health status in Bangladesh has been limited, yet is a necessary population to study, since they are particularly vulnerable to stress and mental health issues. This study assessed anxiety, depressive symptoms, and mental health status among university students in Bangladesh. The Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7, Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Revised Scale, and Mental Health Inventory-5 were translated into Bangla and administered to university students (N = 874) online. In total, 40% of the participants had moderate to severe anxiety, 72% had depressive symptoms and 53% had moderate to poor mental health status. Moreover, path analysis showed worrying about COVID-19 and knowledge about the virus predicted anxiety and moderate to poor mental health status; knowledge and belief about COVID-19’s severity in Bangladesh predicted depressive symptoms. Thus, revealing that mental health issues were high and COVID-19 worry predicted psychopathology symptoms among Bangladeshi university students. Overall, these results, examining students’ mental health during COVID-19, in April 2020, can be helpful to compare how students have adjusted over the pandemic’s progression.

The literature investigating the relationship between social media use, mental health, and sleep has produced inconsistent findings. Younger people spend more time on social media than other age groups, and are more likely to be impacted by social media use. This systematic review with meta-analysis aimed to synthesise the evidence on the associations between social media use, mental health, and sleep of young individuals. Electronic databases PubMed, Scopus and PsycINFO were searched using an established methodology and pre-determined search terms for studies that reported the association between social media use, mental health, and sleep. The search yielded 6108 articles, of which 182 (n = 1,169,396) were eligible for the systematic review, and 98 (n = 102,683) could be included in the meta-analyses. The systematic review identified a high level of heterogeneity in the study results. Meta-analyses found small but significant positive associations between social media use, depression, and anxiety. In addition, problematic social media use was positively associated with depression, anxiety, and sleep problems, and negatively associated with wellbeing. Geographical location, anxiety measure type, study design, age, and gender were identified as potential moderators. Associations for specific social media platforms as well as some moderator effects were not examined due to an insufficient number of studies. This study provides important evidence of an association between social media use/ problematic social media use, mental health, and sleep. The findings support future longitudinal research to identify the directions and underlying mechanisms of the inter-relationship between these variables.

The Coronavirus Anxiety Scale (CAS) is among the first few published screening tools for assessing dysfunctional anxiety induced by the current COVID-19 pandemic. The CAS was translated into the Bangla language following the International Test Commission’s guidelines for this adaptation study and placed in an online survey (N = 737, with a mean age of 26.55 (SD = 7.166 years) to assess the psychometric properties of the Bangla version of the scale. Results suggested that all items had a good item discrimination index and single-factor structure with good factor loadings. The CAS Bangla version was found to have good internal consistency reliabilities, test-retest reliability, and composite reliability (≥ 0.7). The measurement invariance suggested invariances across age groups and gender. The CAS Bangla version showed a high correlation to the anxiety subscale of the short form of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21) and a moderate correlation to the depression subscale of the DASS-21 and the COVID-19 Worry Scale. This validation of a Bangla CAS scale would be helpful for mental health practitioners to assess pandemic anxiety among the Bangladeshi people.

The Bangla version of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21-BV) draws huge attention among the researchers to assess the mental health status in various situations among the Bangladeshi adults. Since no published research article to date has assessed the psychometric properties of the scale (Bangla version), this study (n = 980 Bangladeshi adults) aimed to assess the psychometric characteristics of this scale utilizing both classical test theory (CTT) and item response theory (IRT) approaches. Item analysis results (item-total correlations in CTT and slope coefficients of the graded response model in IRT) suggested that items had satisfactory discrimination indices. The confirmatory factor analysis results supported the three-factor correlated model of the DASS-21-BV. This scale had good internal consistency reliabilities (alpha, omega, Rho coefficient, etc.) in both approaches. Additionally, multigroup confirmatory factor analysis results suggested strict invariance of this scale between males and females. Although the convergent and divergent validity of the DASS-21-BV were not assessed in this study, it was still proposed as a psychometrically sound tool to assess depression, anxiety, and stress in the non-clinical sample Bangladesh.