Directions of personal growth of higher education students under chronic war stress

Abstract

Introduction. Effective coping with chronic war stress requires monitoring of personal changes, as well as the creation and running of social and psychological support programs for higher education students. Aim: to empirically investigate the directions of personal growth of higher education students under the chronic war stress. Methods. A comparative research with the time factor as an independent variable was used. The empirical study used the following qualitative and quantitative methods: narrative interview "The Impact of War Stress on My Life, Personality, and Activity" (topics: events, consequences, methods of coping); "Post-traumatic Growth Scale" (Tedeschi & Calhoun). The collected qualitative material was subject to content analysis according to predetermined criteria. Quantitative data were compared in percentage terms. Results. The war had a deep transformative effect on almost on every third higher education students. Especially intensive changes in students' identity occurred at the beginning of the war. Challenges of war activated various positive reinterpretations of personal experience: attitude to life and spirituality, opening of new opportunities, increasing value of relationships. The most problematic, from the point of view of positive reinterpretation, was the area of "personal strength." Conclusions. Social and psychological support for the personal growth of higher education students in times of war can be successful if it is rendered at the organizational, interpersonal, and personal levels. Effective interventions can include psychoeducation, coping skills development as well as resourcing.