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. 2022 May 23:13:886344.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.886344. eCollection 2022.

Academic Stress and Mental Well-Being in College Students: Correlations, Affected Groups, and COVID-19

Georgia Barbayannis  1 , Mahindra Bandari  1 , Xiang Zheng  2 , Humberto Baquerizo  3 , Keith W Pecor  4 , Xue Ming  1
Affiliations

Academic Stress and Mental Well-Being in College Students: Correlations, Affected Groups, and COVID-19

Georgia Barbayannis et al. Front Psychol. .

Abstract

Academic stress may be the single most dominant stress factor that affects the mental well-being of college students. Some groups of students may experience more stress than others, and the coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic could further complicate the stress response. We surveyed 843 college students and evaluated whether academic stress levels affected their mental health, and if so, whether there were specific vulnerable groups by gender, race/ethnicity, year of study, and reaction to the pandemic. Using a combination of scores from the Perception of Academic Stress Scale (PAS) and the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale (SWEMWBS), we found a significant correlation between worse academic stress and poor mental well-being in all the students, who also reported an exacerbation of stress in response to the pandemic. In addition, SWEMWBS scores revealed the lowest mental health and highest academic stress in non-binary individuals, and the opposite trend was observed for both the measures in men. Furthermore, women and non-binary students reported higher academic stress than men, as indicated by PAS scores. The same pattern held as a reaction to COVID-19-related stress. PAS scores and responses to the pandemic varied by the year of study, but no obvious patterns emerged. These results indicate that academic stress in college is significantly correlated to psychological well-being in the students who responded to this survey. In addition, some groups of college students are more affected by stress than others, and additional resources and support should be provided to them.

Keywords: COVID-19; Perception of Academic Stress; Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale; academic stress; college students; well-being.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
SWEMWBS and PAS scores for all participants.
Figure 2
Figure 2
SWEMWBS and PAS scores according to gender (mean ± SEM). Different letters for SWEMWBS scores indicate different statistical groupings (p < 0.05).
Figure 3
Figure 3
SWEMWBS and PAS scores according to race/ethnicity (mean ± SEM).
Figure 4
Figure 4
SWEMWBS and PAS scores according to year in college (mean ± SEM). Different letters for PAS scores indicate different statistical groupings (p < 0.05).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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