Mental health of Hong Kong university students: a 5.5-year trend study across the COVID-19 pandemic

This study investigated the trend of the mental health status of Hong Kong university students before and during the 2019 social movement and COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 960 Hong Kong university students completed an online questionnaire in 11 cohorts from 2016 to 2021 in a trend study. In the sample, 68.5% showed various levels of depressive symptoms, and 49.4% were identified to be at-risk for developing mental health problems. The percentage of students with various levels of depressive symptoms and at-risk cases increased from 41.5% and 24.4% in 2016 to 80.0% and 60.0% in 2021, respectively. Overall deterioration of mental health was observed for Hong Kong university students from 2016 to 2021. Furthermore, results showed that positive thoughts, sense-making coping, and resilience functioned as significant protective factors, while negative thoughts and suicidal ideation acted as significant risk factors of various mental health outcomes of Hong Kong university students. © 2025 The Author(s).