• Hanifi Dülger and Sultan Ayaz-Alkaya.
• Department of Midwifery, Bartın University Health Sciences Faculty, Bartın, Turkey.
• J Eval Clin Pract. 2025 Feb 1; 31 (1): e70002e70002.

AimThe current study was conducted to measure the prevalence of stress, anxiety, depression, and sleep quality and identify predisposing factors of psychological distress among young adults during the pandemic.MethodsA cross-sectional design was adopted. The target population consisted of students studying at an associate degree health services school at a university in Turkiye. Overall, 704 students were included in the sample. Multiple logistic regression was implemented to predict risk factors.ResultsThe prevalence of moderate to extremely severe stress, anxiety, and depression was found to be 39%, 48.4% and 47.6%, respectively. There was a strong positive association between stress and anxiety (r = 0.869, p < 0.001), stress and depression (r = 0.912, p < 0.001), and between anxiety and depression (r = 0.857, p < 0.001). A moderate positive relationship was found between sleep quality and stress (r = 0.484, p < 0.001), sleep quality and anxiety (r = 0.484, p < 0.001), and sleep quality and depression (r = 0.481, p < 0.001). Young adults with poor sleep quality, those who find safety measures for the pandemic outbreak insufficient, those who use alcohol, and those who feel despair were more likely to have stress, anxiety, and depression risk. Age and gender did not affect their stress, anxiety, or depression risk.ConclusionsNearly half of the young adults experienced varying degrees of stress, anxiety, and depression, and most had poor sleep quality. The insufficiency of outbreak measures, poor sleep quality, using alcohol, and feelings of despair were mutual predictive factors of stress, anxiety, and depression.© 2025 The Author(s). Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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