Stress management and health promotion behaviors in young men in teritiary education settings in Australia.

Abstract

The concept of stress has been identified as being a major protagonist of ill health and poor sense of well-being amongst all age’s groups. One group that has been identified as being particularly vulnerable to high levels of stress is male tertiary students. The purpose of this study was to test the relationships among stress and specificity of academic concerns among tertiary males. The current study sought to elucidate what were the particular avenues of concern, which resulted in high levels of stress among these young men. Moreover, in order to extrapolate information on how best to address stress related concerns among these young men, a secondary purpose of the study was to examine the health-promoting behaviors utilized by young men, and identify areas which may be pertinent to future educational and clinical intervention and health promotion programs. The participants for this stury comprised a cohort of 226 male students from four universities in Melbourne. The theoretical framework for this study was Pender’s health-promotion model and Lazarus’ stress adaptation model. Instrumentation included the Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile II (HPLP II) and the Daily stress Inventory (DSI). Only two demographic factors, nationality and language spoken at home, were found to differentiate between levels of stress and impact. They were also found to report these events had a higher impact on them than Australian and English speaking students. Male students in the current study were also found to report a higher level of stressful events and greater sense of impact comparable to the normative data. The major factors identified by these young men were varied stressors and environmental hassels. Analysis indicated that there were two factors relates to health-promoting behaviors namely cognitive/emotional and physical health-promoting behaviors. The results also indicated that there was an inverse relationship between increase in the reported experience of stress and health-promoting behaviors