The Effect of Social Capital on the Mental Health of the University Students During the COVID-19 Pandemic With the Mediation of the Resilience Variable

This research was conducted to evaluate the effect of social capital on the student’s mental health with the mediation of resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The research is based on the objective criterion in the applied research group and the data collection method criterion in the survey research group. The statistical population includes the students of the state universities of Tehran and Islamic Azad University Science and Research Branch. The sample size was estimated to be 427 people using SPSS SamplePower software. The share of each university was determined by proportional stratified sampling, and then the samples from each stratum were selected by a simple random method. SPSS and AMOS software was used to analyze the data.

To investigate the hypotheses, we used the 1-sample t-test, the Pearson correlation, multiple regression analysis, and the structural equation model. According to research, social capital has a significant effect on the resilience and mental health of students, considering that the indirect effect of social capital (through resilience) on mental health has also become significant; therefore resilience variable has a mediating role between social capital and mental health variables. The age variable has a positive and significant relationship with all three variables of social capital, resilience, and mental health, so the variables above increase with age.

Considering the importance of social capital, society members can improve their resilience by developing communication networks and being aware of critical conditions to suffer the least psychological and social damage in this pandemic.