Abstract: Objective To understand the anxiety and its influencing factors among college students during the COVID-19 epidemic, so as to provide references for psychological counseling of college students. Methods Using convenient sampling method, an online survey was conducted among college students from February 16 to 20, 2020. The suevey contents mainly included basic knowledge about COVID-19, personal protective behavior, related attitudes to COVID-19, and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item （GAD-7） scale. Results A total of 1 100 college students were investigated, with an average age of 22.5 ± 2.5 years, mainly from South China （37.8%）. The detection rate of anxiety was 38.4%, in which the detection rate of mild, moderate and severe anxiety was 22.5%, 10.5%, and 5.4%, respectively. The multivariate analysis showed that the risk factors for the college students to have anxiety were the fear of discrimination when returning to school from the epidemic areas （OR=2.535）, the fear of falling behind in academic progress （OR=2.304）, and the fear of sharing the dormitory with students from the epidemic areas after returning to school （OR=1.531）. The students who were dissatisfied with the emergency management of the school （OR=1.793） and in the graduating class （OR=1.452） were more likely to have anxiety. Compared with medical students, liberal arts students were more likely to have anxiety （OR=1.876）. Conclusion During the epidemic of COVID-19, college students had a certain degree of anxiety. Colleges and universities should pay attention to students' mental health during the epidemic period, strengthen the emergency management, do a good job in psychological counseling of students, prevent regional discrimination on campus, scientifically and rationally arrange students' return to school and resumption of classes, so as to maximize the maintenance of students' physical and mental health.

Key words: COVID-19, College students, Anxiety, Influencing factor