Perceived Stress and Coping Strategies Among Undergraduate Students Residing in a Kozhikode, India During COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown

Abstract

COVID-19 entered into our lives at the end of 2019 threatening the health of global population and reached pandemic status. The worldwide pandemic has demonstrated to be trying for undergrads. They are more helpless than we might suspect, particularly with the current scholastic and financial burden. Social distancing measures can result in social isolation in an oppressive home, with misuse probably exacerbated during this season of financial vulnerability and stress for students. (World Health Organisation, 2020) This study aims to assess perceived stress and coping strategies during the COVID 19 lockdown, among undergraduate students. Data measurement was done by self-administered online survey using socio-demographic proforma, perceived stress scale, and Brief coping scale. The tool was administered to 100 undergraduate students using a snowball sampling method. The study has shown that 54% of the participants had severe stress and 43% had moderate stress, 3% had mild stress, whereas none had very severe stress. Assessment of coping strategies showed that 81% of the participants had adopted moderate coping strategies, 13% of the sample had adopted low coping strategies and 6% of the participants had adopted high coping strategies whereas none of them had very low coping strategies. There is a significant positive correlation between stress and coping adopted by undergraduate students during COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown at a 0.05 level of significance. There was a significant association between the stress among undergraduate students with selected demographic variables like type of family, the stream of study, and duration of online classes per day.