Stress and Coping Strategies as Predictors of Psychological Wellbeing Among Nigeria University Students

Abstract

Purpose: This study surveyed students' psychological wellbeing as predicted by college stress and coping strategies from three universities (University of Jos, Benue State University Makurdi, and Baze University, Abuja) in north-central Nigeria. Materials and Methods: The sample used in this study was 375 students (male = 247, female = 128) with a mean age of 24.22 years. College Stress Scale [1], Coping Strategies Inventory – Short [2] and Psychological Wellbeing Scale [3] were used to measure students’ stress, coping and wellbeing respectively. Results: The regression results showed that: (1) college stress is a statistically significant predictor of psychological wellbeing F(3,371) = 11.09, p = .005; (2) coping strategies is a statistically significant predictor of psychological wellbeing F(7,367) = 21.86, p = .001; (3) after controlling for possible effect of stress, coping strategies predicted a significant amount of variance in students’ psychological wellbeing, R2 change = .21, F change (4, 367) = 27.56, p < .001. Conclusion: Academic and personal hassles domains of stress were positively related to psychological wellbeing, except negative life event, which was negatively related to the psychological wellbeing, while coping strategies positively related to psychological wellbeing.