Effect of Stress on Mental Health among College Students

Abstract

Stress is a very common experience. No individual is untouched by stressors in their life, especially students, and it is very important for them to keep their mental health or well-being in check. The main objective of this study is to seek the effect of stress on mental health among separate samples of male and female students. This study also aimed to seek correlation between socio-economic status (SES) and stress levels; between stress and six dimensions (emotional stability, over all adjustment, autonomy, security-insecurity, self-concept, and intelligence) of mental health; and between mental health and four dimensions (pressure, physical stress, anxiety, and frustration) of stress. The sample consisted of 59 (n = 29 males; n = 30 females) undergraduate students. Data analysis was executed through SPSS version 29.0 and linear regression analysis, and Karl Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient was implemented on the collected data to test the hypotheses. It was found that stress had a significant and negative effect [-.522 for males (significant at .01 level); and -.457 for females (significant at .05 level)] for students of the sample. SES was not found to be correlated with stress in either males or females. Only emotional stability [-.682 for males; and -.656 (both significant at .01 level)] and over all adjustment [-.623 for males; and -.548 for females (both significant at .01 level)] out of the six dimensions of mental health were found to be correlated with stress. For males, all four dimensions of stress [pressure = -.505 (significant at .01 level); physical stress = -.388, anxiety = -.458, frustration = -.385 (significant at .01 level)] were found to be negatively correlated with mental health. For females, only pressure = -.534 (significant at .01 level) and anxiety = -.399 (significant at .05 level) were found to be negatively correlated with mental health. Students with higher stress and lower mental health levels should seek therapeutic support.