A Study of Mental Health, Perceived Stress, and Self-Esteem among Students in Higher Education

Now a day’s mental health has become one of the most critical issues among individuals of all ages. Due to the demanding nature of academic field more and more students in higher education are now experiencing elevated level of health difficulties. The consequences of these problems can be devastating for some individuals (Abouserie, 1994) leading to discontinuation of studies also at times. Therefore, the present research was designed to understand the mental health status and the contributing factors if any for the students to drop out of higher education. For the present study the sample comprised of 200 students, 100 from Ph.D. research programs and 100 from post-graduation with equal number of males and females under each group. The students were randomly selected from Panjab University Chandigarh. The participants were administered the following measures viz., General Health Questinnaire-12 (GHQ-12, Goldberg & Williams, 1988), Perceived Stress Scale (Cohen & Williamson, 1988) and Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965). Results indicate significant differences on mental health among research students and post graduate students.