Quantitative survey of psychology students' psychological health at Linnaeus University : An examination of the correlations betweenanxiety, perfectionism and educational elements

Abstract

Objective: To broaden the understanding of Swedish psychology student’s psychological health. Issue: Is there psychological illness in terms of self rated anxiety, among the psychology student at Linnaeus University? Are there correlations between self rated anxiety, perfectionistic personality traits and/or educational elements?  Method: A cross-sectional study of  psychology students (N = 65). The participants were recruited via the social media Facebook, and answered an anonymous web survey consisting of Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS-21) and Clinical Perfectionism Questionnaire (CPQ). The participants were divided into two groups based on whether they had clinical (N=19) or theoretical (N=46) elements in their current education. Correlation analysis and ancova were executed in order to answer the issue. Results: Anxiety and perfectionism correlated positively (p=.000). Anxiety correlated positively with theoretical elements (p=.000) but not with clinical educational elements. Perfectionism and anxiety correlated positively during theoretical educational elements p=.007). Conclusion: The results indicate that higher perfectionism can correlate with higher levels of anxiety. It indicates that the perfectionism might have clinical properties. The students' results in relation to educational elements indicate that the participants had rated lower levels of anxiety during the clinical elements of the education. The study was limited in that it did not look into gender identification or underlying causes of non-response, and a small sample with large non-response bias (57%). The limitations mean that the results were not generalisable

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