hrvatski

Predictors of anxiety and depression in University students

The transition to adult age is a period of many challenges and opportunities. Young people are faced with new situations, they need to acquire new skills and develop new relationships, personal and professional. This transition seems to be especially difficult for young people attending University. Studies show that University students experience more psychological problems and adjustment difficulties that their same aged peers, who do not attend University. They experience more anxiety, depression, fear of failure, problems in social relationships as well as widespread alcohol misuse. Therefor, it is important to determine risk and protective factors in order to be able to offer better support to students either in preventing or treating psychological problems. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of personality traits, self-liking and self-competence, and perfectionism with anxiety and depression in University students. Given the comorbidity between anxiety and depression, we were specifically interested in examining the similarities and differences in the effects of said predictors on anxiety and depression. A sample of 436 students completed measures of personality traits (big five), self-liking and self-competence, perfectionism, anxiety and depression. Correlational analyses have shown significant relations between neuroticism, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, self-liking and self-competence as well as dimensions of neurotic perfectionism with both anxiety and depression. However, hierarchical regression analyses revealed some interesting differences in the effects of personality traits, self-esteem and perfectionism on anxiety and depression. Neuroticism, conscientiousness, both self-liking and self-competence, as well as concern over mistakes and doubt about actions predicted anxiety in the expected direction. However, further analyses showed that the effect of conscientiousness was mediated by self-competence, and that concern over mistakes and doubt about actions mediated the relationship between self-liking and self-competence and anxiety. Concern over mistakes and doubt about actions also partially mediated the relationship between neuroticism and anxiety. Depression, on the other hand, was predicted by neuroticism, conscientiousness, extraversion, self-liking and parental criticism in the expected direction. Further analysis showed that self-liking mediated the relationship between extraversion and depression, and partially mediated the relationship of neuroticism and conscientiousness with depression. The results of our study are inline with studies that show neuroticism to be a risk factor for psychopathological symptoms in general. However, there were significant differences in the effects of other factors. Conscientiousness and self-competence seem to be important in protecting against anxiety while extraversion and self-liking seem to have a greater effect in protecting against depression. With regard to perfectionism, our results suggest that perfectionistic concern over mistakes and uncertainty about the quality of ones actions lead to anxiety while criticism from parents increases the risk for depression. Therefore, anxiety seems to be more determined by faith in one's abilities, self-discipline, and intrinsic doubts and concerns about ones capabilities, while depression seems to be more affected by perceptions of self-worth in relation to others and reactions from significant others, namely parents.

depression ; anxiety ; University students

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