Impacting factors of stress among normal university students

ObjectiveTo analyze impacting factors of stress among university students and to provide substantial evidence for mental health education in universities.MethodsA newly developed inventory of psychological stress for university students was adopted for the evaluation of stress.The differences between gender,majors and grades were examined.ResultsThe students'total stress was at moderate level.The students had higher scores in job-hunting stress and academic stress,but relatively lower scores in social position and wealth stress,physical condition,and living stress.Female students showed markedly higher stress level than male students in both social communication stress and job-hunting stress (t=2.024,P<0.05;t=2.956,P<0.001).Students majoring in liberal arts had significantly higher scores of social position and wealth stress,and job-hunting stress than that of the students in science majors(t=2.768,P<0.05,t=4.152, P<0.000 1).Freshmen demonstrated higher social communication stress than juniors and seniors.Seniors'academic stress was significantly lower than that of students of other grades(P<0.05).Both sophomores and juniors manifested higher jobhunting stress than freshmen and seniors(P<0.05).Freshmen's total stress was significantly higher than that of seniors(P<0.05).ConclusionThere are significant differences in total stress between normal studets with different major and in different grade,and there is no significant difference between students of different genders and from different living area.