Relationship between Self-Esteem and Mental Health According to Mindfulness of University Students

Abstract

This study is aimed to examine the relationship between self-esteem and mental health according to the mindfulness of university students and to provide the basic data for drawing up measures to improve mental health by understanding and making use of mindfulness through the results. As a survey research, the data was collected from May to June, 2014. The survey was implemented for 458 university students in a university in M city and C city. SPSS 21.0 was used for data analysis, and to grasp the relativity between average, standard deviation, and measurement variable, ANOVA, Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient was used. As a result of this study, the degree of the mindfulness of university student was 39.42±15.36, which was below average, that of self-esteem was 85.22±27.58, and that of mental health was 28.47±4.61, both of which over the average. There was a significant, positive correlation between mental health and self-esteem according to mindfulness. The better mindfulness worked out, the better mental health maintained, which showed a strong level of correlation (r=.761, p<.001), however, the better mindfulness worked out, the higher self-esteem got, which showed a low level of correlation (r=.123, p<.01). The higher self-esteem was, the better mental health maintained, which showed a low level of correlation (r=.192, p<.01). Therefore, it is considered that it is necessary to have a program for university students that makes them lead mental health toward a positive direction and have a high level of self-esteem through a training of mindfulness.