Hardiness and Psychological Distress among University Students Studying In Madhya Pradesh

Mental health has become an increasingly important concern in our society with more and more psychological disorders affecting the younger population. Moreover, the prevalence and seriousness of psychological disorder have been found to be on the rise among university students and their level of mental distress has also been found to be higher compared to the general population. Therefore, mental health of the student population deserves our special attention because not only the university students have to deal with the academic demands and heavy workloads associated with pursuing a higher education but they also have to face a wide myriad of personal, academic and social challenges in this critical and often transitional period of one’s life. This co-relational study examines the relationship between hardiness and psychosocial distress among 100 university students studying in Madhya Pradesh. The sample was selected on purposive basis. These dimensions with reference to demographic factors are included for analyses and their relationships with the levels of psychological distress measured by Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10) (2003) and hardiness measured by Bartone’s Dispositional Resilience Scale (DRS-15) (1993) are investigated. In addition, possible domicile and gender differences in the pattern of associations are explored. The data were compiled using self-administered questionnaires, and the collected data were processed and interpreted using comparative statistics and correlation analyses. The results indicate that there is a significant negative correlation between hardiness and psychological distress among university students. Furthermore, students belonging to rural areas showed higher levels of psychological distress than urban students In contrast, there is no significant difference in the levels of hardiness as well as in psychological distress between male and female university students.