Perceived Stress Levels and Sources of Stress among College Students

BACKGROUND: According to the ACHA-NCHA, stress has been the number one ‘impediment' to academic performance in college students since 2003. While stress is widely known to cause adverse physiological changes in the body, it also contributes to reduced work effectiveness, formation/engagement in health-risk behaviors, and negative long-term consequences such as addiction, crime, poor academic performance, and career failure. Since college students are inundated by stress on a daily basis, it is important to identify their levels and sources of stress in order to create interventions to counter such negative consequences.

PURPOSE: To explore the perceived stress levels and sources of stress among college students.

METHODS: The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), Inventory of College Students Recent Life Experiences (ICSRLE), and a demographic questionnaire containing the question ‘name your top three sources of stress' were administered to a convenience sample recruited from general education health courses at three universities in the Southwest.

RESULTS: Mean PSS score was 19.16 ± 6.10; Mean ICSRLE score was 2.03 ± .452, with the greatest hassle being ‘time pressure' (M = 2.57 ± .683) and the least hassle being ‘assorted annoyances' (M = 1.69 ± 545). The top sources of stress were academic demands (97.4%), relationships (43.1%), finances (38.7%), parents/family (27.2%), and extracurricular activity involvement/demands (22.2%).

CONCLUSIONS: This sample reported ‘moderate' amounts of stress with intensities between ‘only slightly' and ‘distinctly a part of my life.' Academic demands as the top source of stress coupled with time pressure as the most intense hassle indicate the need for a more practical application based stress-time management course as part of the college health curriculum.