Abstract
Previous research has found a positive association between social class and mental health among university students. Various mediators of this association have been proposed. However, the extent to which students perceive these mediators as having an impact on their mental health has not been investigated. It is important to investigate this issue because students who do not perceive issues as having an impact on their mental health may not be motivated to address those issues. In the current study, 402 first-year undergraduate psychology students from a large Australian university indicated the extent to which 32 issues had a negative impact on their mental health over the past six months. Students rated lack of money, time management, coursework assessment items, lack of sleep, and course marks as having the largest impact on their mental health. Lack of money and time management mediated the positive association between subjective social status and mental health over (a) the past week and (b) the past month. Coursework assessment items and course marks mediated the positive association between subjective social status and satisfaction with the university experience. It is concluded that interventions should focus on these relatively high impact issues in order to address social class differences in students’ mental health and university satisfaction.
Highlights
Students from lower socioeconomic (SES) backgrounds tend to have poorer mental health at university than students from higher SES backgrounds (Ibrahim et al, 2013; King et al 2011; Rubin et al 2016; Rubin and Kelly 2015; Said et al 2013; for a recent review, see Rubin et al 2019)
In other words, controlling for these variables tends to reduce the size of the association between social class and mental health, suggesting that social class differences in mental health are partly explained by social class differences in classism, sense of control, social contact, and parenting style
The current study aimed to provide a better understanding of (a) issues that undergraduate students perceive to be detrimental to their mental health and (b) high impact issues that help to explain the positive association between subjective social status and mental health
Summary
Students from lower socioeconomic (SES) backgrounds tend to have poorer mental health at university than students from higher SES backgrounds (Ibrahim et al, 2013; King et al 2011; Rubin et al 2016; Rubin and Kelly 2015; Said et al 2013; for a recent review, see Rubin et al 2019). Unlike Juniper et al.’s study, the present research was focused on identifying high impact mediators of the association between subjective social status and mental health. The current study aimed to provide a better understanding of (a) issues that undergraduate students perceive to be detrimental to their mental health and (b) high impact issues that help to explain the positive association between subjective social status and mental health. This approach allowed us to be more confident that social interventions based on the identified mediators are more likely to be accepted by the students in question
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