Associations between depression, anxiety, stress, hopelessness, subjective well-being, coping styles and suicide in Chinese university students

Abstract

Suicide is a major public health concern worldwide. This study aimed to predict the suicidal behavior of Chinese university students by studying psychological measures such as hopelessness, orientation to happiness, meaning in life, depression, anxiety, stress, and coping styles. In November 2016, a stratified-clustered-random sampling approach was utilized to select subjects from two large public medical-related universities in Shandong province, China. This sample consisted of 2,074 undergraduate students (706 males, 1,368 females; mean age = 19.79±1.39 years). The students’ major risk factors for suicide were depression, anxiety, stress, and hopelessness, and the students’ minor risk factors included orientation to happiness and coping styles (including self-distraction, self-blame and substance use). Notably, the presence of meaning in life had a positive effect on preventing suicide and acted as a protective factor, which suggests that it is important to identify risk factors as well as protective factors relevant to the target population group in order to increase the effectiveness of counseling and suicide prevention programs.

Suicidality among Chinese college students: A cross-sectional study across seven provinces

“…The Psychache Scale scores have adequate psychometric properties, with alpha reliability coefficients over 0.90 when completed by university students. In a sample of Chinese students, the Cronbach's α was 0.94 [21]. In this study, the Cronbach's α of the scale score is 0.96.…”

“…Participants who responded "I have attempted to kill myself, but did not want to die" or "I have attempted to kill myself, and really hoped to die" indicated lifetime suicide attempt. The Chinese translated version yielded an internal consistency estimate of Cronbach's α = 0.67 [21]. In this study, the Cronbach's α of the scale score is 0.75.…”

What are the risk factors and protective factors of suicidal behavior in adolescents? A systematic review

“…In this systematic review, in addition to identifying new internal and external risk factors, this article also identifies protective factors for adolescent suicide behavior. Reframing meaningful life, adequate nutrition (higher fruit intake and higher vegetable intake), and parent–child interactions (family communication, mother/child relationship, and parental monitoring) are potential factors to prevent suicidal behavior in adolescents (Arat, 2017; Lensch, Clements‐Nolle, Oman, Lu, & Dominguez, 2018; Lew et al, 2019). Also, positive diversion activities such as the use of smartphones for noble purposes, reading books, and watching movies are protective factors of suicide behavior.…”

Subjective Well-Being in Higher Education: Psychometric Properties of the Satisfaction with Life and Subjective Vitality Scales in Spanish University Students

“…Subjective well-being is also associated with resilience, healthy lifestyles and perceived health in university students [14,15]. Higher education students with low levels of subjective well-being are more likely to present depression, anxiety and stress [16]. Self-esteem is also closely associated with well-being, as high self-esteem is one of the strongest indicators of subjective well-being [4,17,18].…”