The more lonely these students feel — especially emotionally — the more depressed and burned out they tend to be. Their depression is the biggest factor linked to how lonely they feel.

Higher depression levels in Ukrainian female students were strongly linked to higher emotional loneliness, moderately linked to general loneliness, and weakly linked to social loneliness.

When these young women feel more depressed, they also tend to feel more scared of the war, more emotionally drained, and more alone — and their depression is the biggest factor linked to feeling burned out.

Ukrainian female students reported feeling less emotionally lonely over time, with a small but statistically significant decrease from 2022 to 2024.

When students are both scared of the war and feel lonely or depressed, their burnout gets much worse — it’s not just the sum of each stressor, but a combined effect.