Stress and stress coping strategies among undergratuated students of the University of Ljubljana

Abstract

Background: Stress is an inevitable phenomenon of students’ way of life nowadays. In particular, stressors are associated with study obligations and interpersonal relationships. In a time of rapid social changes, the problem of stress among young people is highly dynamic and complicated; therefore, academic studies and research regarding this subject are among the most important tasks of society. Our study aimed to analyse the stress and coping strategies among the students of selected faculties of the University of Ljubljana.

Methods: We surveyed 622 students of the first and third year of six faculties of the University of Ljubljana, of which 40.5% were men and 59.6% women. The questionnaire was summarized according to the questionnaire used in the project “Risk Factors for Non-Communicable Diseases in Adult Population of Slovenia” was used in our study. The data were processed with SPSS. The basic statistics were calculated, and the hypotheses were checked at the level of 5% of the statistical risk (p ≤ 0.05) using the Chi-square test.

Results: The survey showed that most students (46.8%) feel stress occasionally, 30.4% of them often, and 4.7% every day. The students of the Faculty of Medicine are more affected by stress than other students are, especially in comparison to the students of the Faculty of Sport. Women suffer from stress more than men do. A total of 82.2% of the students claimed the burden of study as the reason for tension, stress and a feeling of heaviness. Among them, most students were from the Faculty of Medicine and the least were from the Faculty of Sport; most of them were women. The students of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and the Faculty of Medicine study and learn continuously. Outside the examination period, 38.5% of students sleep only 5 to 6 hours per day. Only 12.8% of students can easily handle stress, 70% of them handle stress with some effort and 16.5% of them with great effort; among them, students of the third year and men cope with stress better than others do. As a coping strategy, a large majority (72%) of students mention sports activity, mostly students of the Faculty of Sport, and the least students of the Faculty of Education. Only 5.2% of students never engage in sport; most are active in sports from 3 to 5 days a week, from 30 to 60 minutes.
Conclusion: The study highlighted the problem of stress and coping with it with students from selected faculties of the University of Ljubljana. The survey has shown a high prevalence of self-reported stress, with the vast majority of students reporting physical activity as the most used method of coping. There were significant differences with the corresponding confidence level 95% in terms of gender and faculty. Further research and the implementation of effective measures could improve the quality of life of students, which would later also contribute to reduced levels of burnout in the workplace, as young people as students would be better aware of this problem and knew the appropriate preventive measures.