Abstract
Stress, social support, and coping correlates of the Short-Form 36 Health Survey (SF-36) were examined in 307 undergraduate students. Instruments included the SF-36, the Perceived Stress Scale, the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, and the Ways of Coping Inventory-Revised. HRQOL appeared worse and reported stress and use of maladaptive coping strategies were higher than age-appropriate national norms. Stress, social-support, and coping strategies were correlated with SF-36 physical and mental health subscales. In a stepwise multiple regression equation predicting the SF-36 Mental Health Composite Scale, stress, escape-avoidance coping, problem-focused coping, and accepting-responsibility coping emerged as significant predictors. In another stepwise multiple regression equation predicting the SF-36 Physical Composite Scale, self-control coping and family support emerged as significant predictors. Results suggest that psychosocial measures are excellent predictors of mental HRQOL but are not as strong for physical HRQOL. Possible interventions for improving health status among college students are offered.
Highlights
In 1948 the World Health Organization defined health as “a state of complete physical, mental, and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity (WHO) (World Health Organization, 1948)
This study examined three psychosocial constructs that may have predictive implications for health-related quality of life (HRQOL) as assessed by the Short-Form 36 (SF-36)
This study examined two research questions: 1) What are the mean scores for the SF-36 scales and for measures of psychosocial functioning among a college student sample and how do they compare with appropriate non-collegiate national norms? and 2) Can Mental and Physical HRQOL as assessed by the SF-36 be predicted via perceived stress, social support, and coping measures?
Summary
In 1948 the World Health Organization defined health as “a state of complete physical, mental, and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity (WHO) (World Health Organization, 1948). This measure was created by the Rand Corporation in the 1980’s and has been widely used as a measure of HRQOL It has been used extensively in characterizing outcomes from a variety of medical interventions (DeBerard, Masters, Colledge, Schleusener, & Schlegel, 2001; Gross, Limwattananon, Matthees, Zehrer, & Savik, 2000; Matsen, Antoniou, Rozencwaig, Campbell, & Smith, 2000; Rumsfeld et al, 1999), assessing general health status of inpatient and outpatient samples, and in assessing general population health functioning via epidemiologic studies (Stewart & Ware, 1992; Ware et al, 2000). These constructs include stress, social support, and ways of coping with stressful situations
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