Depression, Anxiety and Stress amongst First Year Psychology Students - Lab Report Example

Running head: Depression, Anxiety and Stress Depression, Anxiety and Stress amongst First Year Psychology Students Xiaoman Liu RMIT University Abstract Objective: First year students go through a major change when they enter their university lives. This report was to analyse the effect of a change in environment on those students, especially the stress experienced by female students. Method: A 42 item DASS was circulated over the internet to measure depression, anxiety and stress amongst student. Results: Out of the 299, ten dropped out. Depression was prevalent at 39 % and was followed by stress and anxiety at 37% and 35% respectively. Conclusions: This study concluded that stress levels amongst students are dangerously high and need to be monitored. Some kind of support systems’ need to be developed to ease students into their new surroundings. Depression, anxiety and stress amongst first year students There is an increasing number of students that either drop out or report burn outs each year because of the pressure they face in their first year of undergraduate studies. The aim of this paper was to examine the prevalence of depression, anxiety and stress among first year university students. It also aimed to clarify the different levels of depression, anxiety and stress between male and female students. Last but not the least, it attempted to deduce whether other factors e.g. which would affect the degree of depression, anxiety and stress of university students. Over the past many years the concern for the mental health for students has been increasing; especially that of first year students who have been seen to have the worst cases of anxiety, stress and depression. With the starting of university life, first year students have to learn to handle new responsibilities, for instance, friendships, career prospect, financial problems, etc (Wong et al., 2006). Factors such as gender, age and social statues also prove influential and should be taken into account (Andrews & Wilding 2004). Previous research papers highlight a high percentage of psychological morbidity, specifically depression, anxiety and stress amongst university students in different countries all over the world (Wong et al., 2006). Meanwhile, similar results from the DASS (Depression Anxiety and Stress Scales) conducted by Wong et al. (2006) and Nuran & Nazan (2008) showed a higher depression, anxiety and stress scores amongst first year students. Specifically, the anxiety and stress scores of female students were considerably higher than that of male students’. However, there were no significant different between female and male students regarding there depression level in the DASS survey of 2006 and the Nuran & Nazan study of 2008. On the contrary, higher levels of female student depression was reported as compared to male students found in previous investigation studies, for example, a Nigerian study which used the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview and the Higher Education Stress Inventory and Major Depression Inventory. Nevertheless, this paper was primarily based on the DASS data collection. This reports main focus is on the number of first year students who experience depression, anxiety and stress. It also seeks to identify the variations in results due to age, gender etc. It was hypothesized that female students would report higher anxiety and stress scores than males, while male students would report higher depression scores than females. This study proves that with the changing times the stress, anxiety and depression trends have also increased. Females still find themselves under greater stress than their male counterparts but the number of men affected by depression has gone down significantly, in comparison. Method Participants At the beginning of the first year over 299 students enrolled in Psychology, of which 10 students failed to complete the questionnaire, however, because this number was relatively small (3.3%) it did not have a significant effect on the findings of this study. Materials The study was done through a DASS questionnaire which focused on 42 items that pinpointed symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress that the students went through over a time period of seven days. The Likert scale was used to analyse how the students reacted to these questions on three sub-scales i.e. from 0 = did not apply to me at all, to 3 = applied to me very much. Procedure The questionnaire was circulated to students online and confidentiality was achieved by omitting any kind of personal data that could be used to identify the student, eg. Name. The blind method was used to ensure confidentiality and to make sure that the result remained valid and were not influenced by any extraneous variables. Results Stress, anxiety and depression can stagnant a person’s mind and halter their growth. For first year students it is the time when they are required to do some heavy mental work and all these factors combined their focus becomes very weak. The results of this study indicate that stress was the most occurring problem in the entire sample. The findings from this report’s results are compared to Crawford and Henry (2003). Three factors i.e. stress, depression and anxiety were measured in both. In terms of depression the test value from the given 289 students (mean = 7.5) when compared to Crawford and Henry’s community sample (5.5) is increased by 1.9; A one-sample t-test indicates a significant difference between the two given means, this shows that depression was higher in this student sample as compared to the community sample. Anxiety was also considerably higher in the student sample (mean = 6) compared to the community sample (mean = 3.7). The mean difference between the two samples was 2.3. A one-sample t-test showed that the difference between the two samples was worse as compared to depression. The rate of anxiety has clearly grown more so than depression. Stress similarly showed a higher result in the student sample (mean = 10.8) as opposed to the community sample (mean = 9.3) which showed a difference of 1.5. Overall the student sample had more stress, anxiety and depression with stress showing the highest numbers. It was assumed that the levels of depression, anxiety and stress can be categorised by gender as well. The way the sexes react to a situation can be vastly different. The study though proved this theory wrong. A larger number of women would appear to be depressed (mean = 7.6) as compared to men (mean = 6.4) where the difference between the two samples is 1.25. However, an independent t-test shows that the difference between the two was not that significant. Anxiety is at first glance seemingly the same between females (mean = 6.2) and males (6.0) and the t-test confirms that the difference between the two is not big enough to be taken into consideration (t (134.63) =1.845, p=.098). Similarly, while the t-test showed a much lower difference between anxiety levels of men and women (t (129.53) =.367, p=.078). The results are similar for stress shown in female where although through the mean stress in females was statistically much higher (mean = 11.2) as compared to males (mean = 9.4) and we can clearly see that females are more prone to stress than males. Another aspect of the study was the difference in ages. The correlation between depression and age was not significant (r = -.14) and was actually weak. The same can be said for stress (r = -0.44) which was relatively higher than depression but overall weak. Anxiety was the only one which seem to have a substantial effect on any of the students in terms of their age (r = -0.87). Discussion This study was able to compare the statistical data against the Crawford and Henry community sample; it was the finding of this report that the initial hypothesis that all three issues i.e. stress, depression and anxiety have gone up a great deal was proven true; in comparison to the 2003 study by Crawford and Henry, this reports results show elevated statistics, where stress showed the most significant increase. This is most likely due to the increase in competitiveness overall in the academic world. Students are now more worried about their education than ever before and the need to excell is great. It was also hypothesized at the beginning of this study that females would report higher anxiety and stress scores than males, while the male students would exhibit higher depression scores as compared to the females. The results of this study were compared to Crawford and Henry's community sample and proved this assumption wrong as the sample survey for this report showed that gender had no bearing over the amount of anxiety, depression or stress that a student suffers from. At first glance although the numbers for females appear higher, it was concluded that this was due to the fact that more women were surveyed than men i.e. the ratio for women to men was 218:70. In previous studies, (Andrews & Brown 1995) it has been shown that even asymptomatic students who seemed fine in the beginning of their semesters exhibited problems later on. The results from this report show that overtime students are comparatively feeling more pressure than before. While the entire prospect of starting a degree offers new possibilities, having to cope with the problematic aspects of those new possibilities can stifle the students. The results have a margin of error, because, to begin with the data collection was carried out through the blind method; this ensured confidentiality but there is no method of knowing how much of the information provided was true or not. The results however, are taken to be near accurate because they are supported by other research done on the same. An example is a study done by Fisher & Hood which suggests significant short-term increases in emotional distress from around two months before university entry to six weeks into the course which shows that stress is caused even from anticipation of these problems and can only mount over time and the subjects of this report exhibited similar behavior; the results from the report show elevated stress levels in the students as well. The results from this report show that stress, depression and anxiety are elevated in first year students; there need to be support group to counter this problem. Outside the realm of a psychological analysis this study can be taken to prove that teachers exert too much pressure on their students and some relaxation is needed in terms of the study schedules, assignments, and possibly the study methods. One problem with the analysis of this report is whether or not students know of any coping methods, in the event that they do, whether these methods were able to help them. Passive means of coping that are normally adapted by students are not enough and they need to be made aware of university services and programs that can help them (Kranz et al., 2008). In short students need to be given role models through emotional support as to how they can deal with the situations they find themselves in, they can then easily focus on their studies. In the event that they are plagued by stress, anxiety and depression and cannot deal with the situation that they are in then their education will suffer and so will they in the long run. References Andrews, Bernice, & Wilding, John M., (2004) The relation of depression and anxiety to life-stress and achievement in students. British Journal of Psychology (2004), 95, 509–521 Brown, G. W., Andrews, B., Harris, T. O., Adler, Z., & Bridge, L. (1986). Social support, self-esteem and depression Psychological Medicine, 16, 813–831. Canales-Gonzales, Patricia L., Kranz, Peter L., Granberry, Mark, Tanguma, Jesus., (2008) An Assessment of Stress Experienced by Students in a Prepharmacy Curriculum, Journal of Instructional Psychology; Mar2008, Vol. 35 Issue 1, p17-23, 6p Crawford, J.R., & Henry, J.D. (2003). The Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS): Normative data and latent structure in a large non-clinical sample British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 42, 111-131. Fisher, S., & Hood, B. (1987). The stress of the transition to university: A longitudinal study of psychological disturbance, absent-mindedness and vulnerability to homesickness. British Journal of Psychology, 78, 425–441. Wong, J.G.W.S., Cheung, E.P.T., Chan, K.K.C., Ma, K.K.M., & Tang, S.W. (2006). Web-based survey of depression, anxiety and stress in first-year tertiary education students in Hong Kong. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 40(9), 777-782. Read More

the anxiety and stress scores of female students were considerably higher than that of male students’. However, there were no significant different between female and male students regarding there depression level in the DASS survey of 2006 and the Nuran & Nazan study of 2008. On the contrary, higher levels of female student depression was reported as compared to male students found in previous investigation studies, for example, a Nigerian study which used the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview and the Higher Education Stress Inventory and Major Depression Inventory.

Nevertheless, this paper was primarily based on the DASS data collection. This reports main focus is on the number of first year students who experience depression, anxiety and stress. It also seeks to identify the variations in results due to age, gender etc. It was hypothesized that female students would report higher anxiety and stress scores than males, while male students would report higher depression scores than females. This study proves that with the changing times the stress, anxiety and depression trends have also increased.

Females still find themselves under greater stress than their male counterparts but the number of men affected by depression has gone down significantly, in comparison. Method Participants At the beginning of the first year over 299 students enrolled in Psychology, of which 10 students failed to complete the questionnaire, however, because this number was relatively small (3.3%) it did not have a significant effect on the findings of this study. Materials The study was done through a DASS questionnaire which focused on 42 items that pinpointed symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress that the students went through over a time period of seven days.

The Likert scale was used to analyse how the students reacted to these questions on three sub-scales i.e. from 0 = did not apply to me at all, to 3 = applied to me very much. Procedure The questionnaire was circulated to students online and confidentiality was achieved by omitting any kind of personal data that could be used to identify the student, eg. Name. The blind method was used to ensure confidentiality and to make sure that the result remained valid and were not influenced by any extraneous variables.

Results Stress, anxiety and depression can stagnant a person’s mind and halter their growth. For first year students it is the time when they are required to do some heavy mental work and all these factors combined their focus becomes very weak. The results of this study indicate that stress was the most occurring problem in the entire sample. The findings from this report’s results are compared to Crawford and Henry (2003). Three factors i.e. stress, depression and anxiety were measured in both.

In terms of depression the test value from the given 289 students (mean = 7.5) when compared to Crawford and Henry’s community sample (5.5) is increased by 1.9; A one-sample t-test indicates a significant difference between the two given means, this shows that depression was higher in this student sample as compared to the community sample. Anxiety was also considerably higher in the student sample (mean = 6) compared to the community sample (mean = 3.7). The mean difference between the two samples was 2.3. A one-sample t-test showed that the difference between the two samples was worse as compared to depression.

The rate of anxiety has clearly grown more so than depression. Stress similarly showed a higher result in the student sample (mean = 10.8) as opposed to the community sample (mean = 9.3) which showed a difference of 1.5. Overall the student sample had more stress, anxiety and depression with stress showing the highest numbers. It was assumed that the levels of depression, anxiety and stress can be categorised by gender as well. The way the sexes react to a situation can be vastly different. The study though proved this theory wrong.

A larger number of women would appear to be depressed (mean = 7.

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