a growing experience - Student Services - University of Melbourne

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HEALTH AND WELL-BEING OF INTERNATIONAL STUDENTSGutierrez, 2004). The higher rate of female involvement in self-harm is alsoconsistent with other findings in the study concerning abuse and distress, relationshipdistress, self-esteem and general stress levels. The gender difference on suchmeasures of emotional distress and the female pattern of internalising that distress areconsistent with higher female involvement in self-harming. The fact that gender actsas a significant predictor of self-harm is another indicator of its importance in thiscontext.Undergraduate students are also more vulnerable to self-harm, as are students whofeel their academic progress is worse than anticipated.Predictors of Health and Health-related BehavioursSeveral aspects of students’ well-being have been investigated in this domain:perceptions of general physical health, mental health, and health-related behaviour.Several variables have been shown to act as significant predictors in these areas, somemore consistently than others. The most consistent are cultural stress, involvement inrisky behaviour, depression and perceived academic progress.The most consistent predictor in relation to physical and mental health is CulturalStress scale. It is a significant predictor of each aspect of physical and mental healthinvestigated through regression analysis, except for self-esteem. Cultural stress is astrong predictor of depression, anxiety and stress, in fact the strongest of thepredictors of each of these dimensions. It is also a positive though weaker predictorof perceived health interference in study, that is, high cultural stress predicts strongperceived interference.The fact that cultural stress is associated with a significant amount of the variance instudents’ depression, anxiety, stress and perceived health interference in study doesnot necessarily mean it is causally related. Cultural stress might exacerbatedepression, anxiety and stress or these dimensions might increase cultural stress, theinfluence might be bi-directional, or it might be that all are affected by a thirdunderlying factor – the demands and complexities of the environment in whichstudents find themselves as international students. Whatever the case, it seemsimportant that students’ experiences of cultural stress should be alleviated.Cultural stress plays a lesser role in the aspects of health-related behaviour that havebeen investigated. It is a significant positive predictor of only one area - involvementin gambling and smoking – where it plays a relatively minor role. It also acts as anegative predictor in another domain: students’ preparedness to seek help from theuniversity counselling service, when they feel the need for help.Involvement in risk-taking behaviours, in particular drug and alcohol use, is acommon predictor of aspects of psychological well-being. The Perceptions of DrugUse and Perceptions of Alcohol Use scales are significant positive predictors ofdepression, anxiety and stress, though not of self-esteem. High scores on these scalesare predictive of high levels of psychological distress. In each case perceived druguse is a stronger predictor than perceived alcohol use. Involvement in addictivebehaviours is commonly associated with a lack of psychological well-being,especially with depression (Holahan et al., 2001; Rodgers, Korten, Jorm, Jacomb,Christensen, & Henderson, 2000).Rosenthal, Russell & Thomson, 2006 155
HEALTH AND WELL-BEING OF INTERNATIONAL STUDENTSPerceived drug and alcohol use, together with involvement in gambling/smoking, areconsistent predictors of health-related behaviours. Each pair of these behaviourspredicts the third, thus the three form a tightly-knit, interdependent cluster of riskybehaviours. Perceived drug use is the strongest predictor, involvement ingambling/smoking the next strongest, while perceived alcohol use is the weakest ofthe three. Needless to say, they are all positive predictors of one another. Alcoholuse also acts as a significant positive predictor of self-harm. Excessive alcohol usecan itself constitute a form of self-harm, a maladaptive strategy for coping withdistress. The Perceptions of Gambling/Smoking scale is also a strong negativepredictor of condom use; high involvement in gambling/smoking is associated withless frequent use of condoms.The Depression scale is another common and consistent predictor of well-being in thedomain of health and health-related behaviour. We saw earlier that depression is asignificant negative predictor in the domain of daily life and study in Melbourne.Here depression is a negative predictor of self-esteem and a positive predictor of druguse, alcohol use and self-harm. Its strength as a predictor is highest for self-esteemand self-harm.Perceived academic progress plays a role in students’ well-being in the domain ofhealth and health-related behaviours. It is a significant negative predictor ofdepression, general stress and self-harm, and a positive predictor of self-esteem.Students who feel they are progressing as well as or better than expected have lowlevels of depression, general stress and self-harm, but high levels of self-esteem. It isthe students who feel they are doing worse than expected academically who are indifficulties. The strongest contribution of perceived academic progress is to thedimension of depression, with its contribution to other aspects of well-being beingweaker. However, it is a variable that does act as a significant predictor in aconsiderable range of areas of well-being in different domains.Several other predictors play a less consistent role in this domain - connectedness,abuse and distress, gender, anxiety and age – each helping to account for variance inone or two aspects of well-being. Different variables concerning cultural backgroundalso act as predictors, but for only half of the aspects of well-being in this domain.Being from an Asian country is a positive predictor of anxiety, participation in aFoundation Studies program is a negative predictor of self-esteem, speaking a LOTEoff campus is positive predictor of perceiving health interference in study, being froma non-Asian country is a positive predictor of drug use, and being an English speakeroff campus is a positive predictor of alcohol use. Although these variables seem toplay a less consistent part in students’ well-being in this domain, when they arecombined with or mediated by the cultural stress variable, it can be seen that culturalbackground does play an important role in accounting for variation in students’perceptions of well-being in the domain of health and health-related behaviour.The amount of variation in students’ well-being accounted for in the different aspectsof health and health-related behaviour ranges from a low of 7.9 per cent for condomuse to 30.4 per cent for Depression. The data provide a very limited understanding ofpatterns of condom use. The highest percentages of variance are accounted for in thethree DASS scales and the three main risk-taking behaviours, drug use, alcohol useand gambling/smoking. Once again, the strongest predictors are psychologicaldimensions rather than demographic variables.Rosenthal, Russell & Thomson, 2006 156
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a growing experience - Student Services - University of Melbourne

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