Research on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic among college students around the world has primarily focused on their mental health symptoms and COVID-specific worry. However, contextually specific understanding of outbreak impacts is key to inform directed public health messaging and programming to improve wellbeing and coping. The current study aimed to identify the main psychosocial problems college students experienced during the first 6 months of the COVID-19 pandemic in Monterrey, Mexico. Participants were 606 college students (71% female) enrolled in a private university. Participants described COVID-related problems in an open-ended prompt as part of a longitudinal online survey: initially in May 2020, and then every 2 weeks for 3 months. Thematic analyses were conducted within a longitudinal inductive qualitative approach to rank responses by frequency across themes. Five major categories emerged. At baseline, over 75% of participants noted the outbreak negatively impacted their daily activities and responsibilities, 73% their mental health, 50% their physical health, 35% their interpersonal relationships, and 22% their economic situation. Concerns remained relatively stable throughout the follow-up period, with interpersonal and economic concerns becoming more prevalent as the pandemic progressed. Problems identified in this study can inform preventative measures for future health crises, including tailoring public health messaging and expanding access to contextually sensitive mental and behavioral health programming.

El uso de dispositivos móviles ha ido en aumento durante los últimos años, por lo que se han encontrado estudios principalmente entre adolescentes y adultos, respecto de sus repercusiones sobre todo en términos de una adicción conductual, sin embargo, son escasas las herramientas para el estudio de este comportamiento entre la población menor de 6 años, principalmente en México. El objetivo de este estudio es diseñar y validar un cuestionario sobre uso de dispositivos móviles en niños de entre 1 y 8 años. Participaron 240 padres de familia de diversas ciudades mexicanas, quienes respondieron sobre situaciones de uso y consecuencias por el uso de dispositivos, así sobre control de impulso y percepción de riesgo. Se realizó el análisis de validez entre jueces en el que se obtuvo un IVC superior a .80 así como una confiabilidad de .931. La discusión se centra en las implicaciones de esta herramienta para la evaluación del comportamiento de uso de dispositivos móviles en esta población y los estudios a futuro sobre los efectos a corto y mediano plazo.

This study examines the validity of the Spanish version of the Scientific Epistemic Beliefs (SEB) Questionnaire among university students in northeastern Mexico, considering multiple sources of evidence. The SEB measures four dimensions of epistemic beliefs: Source, Certainty, Development, and Justification. Data from pilot (n = 150) and main (n = 791) samples were analyzed using Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analyses (EFA, CFA), Item Response Theory (IRT), and Differential Item Functioning (DIF). The results provided evidence consistent with a four-factor model, with adequate internal consistency (α = 0.85) and acceptable-to-good fit indices (CFI = 0.944, TLI = 0.936, RMSEA = 0.067, SRMR = 0.071) for a 22-item scale. IRT analyses indicated strong item discrimination, with Source and Certainty covering a broad range of the latent trait, while Development and Justification were more informative at lower to moderate levels. DIF analyses indicated negligible differences in item functioning by gender and academic semester, with minor DIF detected across faculties. Non-parametric analyses identified statistically significant but small differences, with females scoring slightly higher across all dimensions and variations also observed across academic semesters and faculties. Descriptive comparisons with published international data provide contextual evidence within a broader cross-cultural framework.