Psychological Distress, Family Support and Employment Status in First-Year University Students in Spain.

Jorge Arias-De La Torre,Ramona Mateos,Miguel Delgado-Rodríguez,Carlos Ayán,Antonio Molina,Carmen Amezcua-Prieto,Luis Valero,Vicente Martín,Laura Vilorio-Marqués,María Morales-Suárez-Varela,Gemma Blázquez Abellán,Inés Gómez-Acebo,Tania Fernández-Villa,Eladio Jiménez Mejías,Juan Alguacil,Susana Redondo,Rocío Olmedo-Requena,José Cancela,Rocío Ortíz-Moncada

doi:10.3390/ijerph16071209

Abstract

Mental disorders are consistently and closely related to psychological distress. At the start of the university period, the relationship between a student’s psychological distress, family support, and employment status is not well-known. The aims of this study were: To determine the prevalence of psychological distress in first-year university students and to analyze its relationship with family support and the student’s employment status. Data from 4166 first-year university students from nine universities across Spain were considered. The prevalence of psychological distress was obtained using the GHQ-12, a valid and reliable screening tool to detect poor mental health. To analyze the relationship between psychological distress, family support, and employment status, logistic regression models were fitted. Regarding the prevalence found, 46.9% of men and 54.2% of women had psychological distress. In both genders, psychological distress levels increased as family support decreased. Among women, psychological distress was associated with their employment status. The prevalence of psychological distress among first-year university students in Spain is high. In addition, family support, and employment status for women, could be factors to take into account when developing psychological distress prevention strategies at the beginning of the university period.

Highlights

The start of university might constitute a crucial period for students’ mental health [1,2,3,4].During this period, they generally have to face a number of important changes in their lives, like moving, taking on more responsibilities, and adapting to changes in their support network [5].These changes may create a source of psychological distress, something that has been consistently related to mental diseases
Previous studies have shown that psychological distress might be especially related to mental diseases that have a higher component of neuroticism, like anxiety and depressive disorders [4,6]
The prevalence of psychological distress found in the university student population is usually lower than in the non-student population, this varies between studies and may be sensitive to the specific population analyzed and the method of calculation [8,9,10,11]

Summary

Introduction

The start of university might constitute a crucial period for students’ mental health [1,2,3,4] During this period, they generally have to face a number of important changes in their lives, like moving, taking on more responsibilities, and adapting to changes in their support network [5]. They generally have to face a number of important changes in their lives, like moving, taking on more responsibilities, and adapting to changes in their support network [5] These changes may create a source of psychological distress, something that has been consistently related to mental diseases. Previous studies have shown that psychological distress might be especially related to mental diseases that have a higher component of neuroticism, like anxiety and depressive disorders [4,6]. This prevalence is generally around 20% in the general college student population, but can vary between 5% and 45% depending on the specific population, e.g., medical students or students from a particular country [1,2,4,5,12,13,14,15,16]

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Discussion

Conclusion