Previous research shows that undergraduate students experience a considerable amount of stress and that the stress negatively affects their academic performance.14,15,16 However, little was known about what stress students experience. Therefore, the first Mental Health Needs Assessment (MHNA) project was conducted to learn about students’ perception of stress and its impact on mental health while attending academic programs.
Methods
Informed by a Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach, we recruited 18 student co-researchers. These co-researchers were predominantly full-time, domestic, upper-year students. All co-researchers participated in an orientation session before the data collection began. Data were collected through three focus groups, eight semi-structured individual interviews, and two art group activities. Dialogue during the focus groups, interviews, and art activities was audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Thematic analysis was applied to the transcribed data. The student co-researchers were engaged in the data analysis and action planning.
Findings
The student co-researchers identified four main themes: sense of community, academic pressure, services, and personal context.
Sense of Community
The campus community was identified as a major influence on the co-researchers’ overall university experience. The co-researchers identified interactions with peers, faculty, and staff as crucial for forming a sense of community and for maximizing the chances of academic success. Barriers to forming a sense of community included: UBC’s perceived status as a business, the large size of the UBC campus, perceived status differences between faculties, the transition to university and classroom dynamics, mental health stigma, cultural insensitivity, social cliques, and campus safety concerns. Supportive factors included: campus-wide events, transition and orientation programs, student government, resources dedicated to mental health and support, Alma Mater Society (AMS) clubs, and residence advisors.
Academic Pressure
The majority of the co-researchers experienced pressure to achieve high grades. This pressure came from the university, family, society, and themselves. They identified the academic workload, exam schedules, number of assessments, grade scaling, and competition among students as contributing factors. Academic pressure manifested in students as stress, imbalanced lifestyles, and loss of self-esteem.
Campus Services
The co-researchers acknowledged that many of the services available on campus offer support to students, but there were some suggestions for improving certain resources. UBC Rec and Career services were generally recognized as helpful in managing stress and AMS clubs were identified as a way to develop social connections. However, commuter students identified limited transportation services as a barrier to participation in the latter. Mental health–related services such as Counselling, Kaleidoscope, and Speak Easy were recognized as potentially helpful, although co-researchers identified several barriers to accessing them, including the hours of operation, stigma, awareness of the service, financial concerns (for off-campus referrals), and a personal lack of motivation.
Personal Context
The co-researchers indicated that a wide variety of personal factors were a source of stress. These included: making the transition from university to high school, maintaining a balanced life, a shifting sense of identity, a desire for meaningful learning, post-graduation concerns, family relationships, and financial concerns. Co-researchers shared their personal coping strategies, which included time management, goal-setting, social support, and engaging in leisure activities. There was a significant variation in the personal influencing factors identified by international versus domestic students. International students identified financial concerns and transitioning to university as primary stressors, whereas the stress for domestic students was mainly rooted in maintaining a balanced lifestyle and in concerns about the future.
Conclusions
Although the small sample size means the findings cannot be transferred and may not fully capture the experiences of part-time and/or first-year students, the qualitative exploration in this study revealed students’ views of stress. The inclusion of students as co-researchers in the research process helped generate the findings and suggestions for changes that reflect their perspectives and needs. In addition, the findings led to the development of the University Stress Sources Scale (U-StreSS), which will measure university students’ stress; as well as the development of 2013/14 MHNA study, exploring campus mental health stigma.
References
14 American College Health Association. (2013). Canadian reference group executive summary, spring 2013. Retrieved from http://www.acha-ncha.org
15 Eisenberg, D., Hunt, J., & Speer, N. (2013). Mental health in American colleges and universities: Variation across student subgroups and across campuses. Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease, 201(1), 60-67. doi:10.1097/NMD.0b013e31827ab077
16 Kerr, D. L., Santurri, L., & Peters, P. (2013). A comparison of lesbian, bisexual, and heterosexual college undergraduate women on selected mental health issues. Journal of American College Health, 61(4), 185-194.
Posted: Feb 22, 2016