Cultivating spiritual resources for improving undergraduate students’ mental health

Irwan Nuryana Kurniawan

doi:10.24036/4.12113

Abstract

The increasing number of students coming to the university’s guidance and counseling unit demonstrates the need for more serious and systemic efforts to deal with students’ mental health. Previous studies have shown that religion has significant contribution to the human mental health and psychological well-being. This study specifically examined the role of one of the spiritual resources that get emphasis in Islamic teachings that is “Tawakal toward Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala” to the undergraduate students’ mental health. To test the research hypothesis that asserted there is a positive relationship between surrender to God and social-emotional health, current study uses correlational design. The study involved 57 undergraduate students of the statistic class at Psychology Department of Islamic University of Indonesia, Yogyakarta and Surrender to God Scale (Wong-McDonald & Gorsuch, 2000)and Social-Emotional Health Survey (Furlong, You, Shishim, & Dowdy, 2017) were administered to them. When social desirability on the relationship between surrender to God and social-emotional health was controlled, partial correlation r (56) = .510, p = .001was found.The result suggests that there was a significant and strongly positive association between surrender to God and students’ social-emotional health when controlling social desirability scores.

Highlights

All higher education institutions recognize and consider the importance of mental health for the success of their student studies, some universities (Clapham, Jahchan, Medves, Tierney, & Walker, 2012; Report, 2008) report that mental health is still a concerning issue on their campus.The problems ranging from stress, anxiety, until diagnosed depression disorder (Beiter et al, 2014; Hussain, Guppy, Robertson, & Temple, 2013; Macaskill, 2012)
Whereas mental health problems such as depression related to poor quality in behaviour, social relationships, and academic performance of undergraduate students(Keyes, 2009)
The concept of positive mental health was adopted by World Health Organization (WHO) and mental health is defined as a state of well-being in which individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal of stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community (World Health Organization, 2004)

Summary

Introduction

All higher education institutions recognize and consider the importance of mental health for the success of their student studies, some universities (Clapham, Jahchan, Medves, Tierney, & Walker, 2012; Report, 2008) report that mental health is still a concerning issue on their campus.The problems ranging from stress, anxiety, until diagnosed depression disorder (Beiter et al, 2014; Hussain, Guppy, Robertson, & Temple, 2013; Macaskill, 2012). Received February 05, 2018; Revised Februaray 15, 2018; Accepted Februaray 20, 2018; Published Online March 30, 2018

Results

Conclusion