Relationship of Life Stress to College Adjustment in Occupational Therapy Students

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the life stress and college adjustment of occupational therapy students in an effort to provide information on how to ensure the psychological stability and successful college adjustment of students and on the right directions and various methods of career guidance geared toward maladjusted students. The subjects in this study were 465 occupational therapy majors in a college located in Jeolla Province. A self-administered survey was conducted from May 1 to 31, 2014. The findings of the study were as follows: As for life stress by general characteristics, there were differences in that regard according to gender, academic year, religion and living standard, and their college adjustment varied with gender, academic year and living standard. Life stress had a significant negative relationship with college adjustment, and also had a significant negative relationship with academic adjustment, social adjustment, emotional adjustment, physical adjustment and college attachment that were the subfactors of college adjustment. The subfactors of life stress had a significant negative correlation with those of college adjustment as well. In conclusion, sustained research efforts should be channeled into the development of a wide variety of intervention programs geared toward relieving life stress in order to facilitate the school adjustment of college students, which is most important for successful campus life, and the effects of programs developed should be investigated as well.