Psychosomatic distress symptoms among international students in Germany: Role of academic stress and socio-demographic factors.

OBJECTIVE

To assess the predictive role of academic stress in anxiety, depression and somatisation among international students in Germany, and to explore if socio-demographic factors were of any significance in this regard.

METHODS

The cross-sectional study was conducted from October 2017 to March 2018 in Germany and comprised students at universities offering programmes in the general subject category and had a strength of 1000 international students. Data was collected using the Student Stress Inventory, Beck Anxiety Inventory, Major Depression Inventory, Pennebaker Inventory of Limbic Languidness and a socio-demographic questionnaire. Data was collected online, and was analysed using SPSS 21.

RESULTS

Of the 557 subjects, 261(46.9%) were males. The overall mean age of the sample was 25.77±3.79 years. Academic stress explained a great degree of variance in distress symptoms (p<0.05), while socio-demographic variables, except gender, were less important (p>0.05). Male students had a lower level of anxiety, depression, and somatisation (p<0.05). Age was inversely related to anxiety and somatisation (p<0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

There was a clear need to address the problems of higher level of psychological and somatic distress among international students.