**A Descriptive Study to assess the level of Stress and Coping Strategies among UiTM Jasin Students**

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**HIGHLIGHTS**

  - Descriptive statistics was use to know the level of stress and coping strategies among students.

  - Chi square test was used to determine the relationship between effects of stress and gender of students.

  - There are four causes of stress in this study.

ABSTRACT

*University students often face with stress such as problem with the study, family, friends and financial. This predisposes them to anxiety, sadness, anger and depression. To overcome their stress, student use different types of coping strategies. This study aims to investigate the stress level and the coping strategies by the university students and also to identify the relationship between effects of stress based on their gender. The data in this study is primary data that collected through direct questionnaire. Descriptive analysis and chi square test were used to analyse the data. The result of this study indicate that majority of the students have moderate level of stress. Many of students become sadness when they were in stress. In order to reduce the stress, most of students sleeping, followed by listening to music. The chi square test shows, there is no relationship between effects of stress among female and male students.*

*Keywords: stress and coping, effect of stress, stress factors, level of stress*

# INTRODUCTION 

# Most of the students in the university face a lot of pressure and stress from family and lecturers. They have to maintain their quality of work, complete the assignment on time without any mistakes (Irshad et al., 2015). (Irpan et al., 2018) have found that most university students are stress with the study activities in term of to do a lot of assignments, projects and presentations that need to complete during the semester. 

# The coping mechanism plays a major role factor for managing or reduce the stress by the person. Students use different types of coping to overcome their stress. For example, (Pariat et al., 2014) reviewed that students cope with the prays, meditation and sleep which are very effective if the students had academic stress. If the students cannot handle the stress, it cause the negative effects such as sleep problem, health problem, lead to anxiety and depression. 

# Hence, this study aims to investigate the stress level and the coping strategies by the undergraduates’ university students. This study also aims to identify the relationship between effects of stress based on their gender. The data in this study is primary data that collected through direct questionnaire. 

# A lot of people around the world have experience of stress irrespective of their age, race, colour and ethnicity, professional or academic background (Esia-Donkoh et al., 2011). Researcher (Yusoff, 2010) defines stress is as emotional disturbances or changes caused by stressors. Stress which promotes and facilitates learning is called good stress while stress which inhibits and suppresses learning is called bad stress. (Anspaugh et al., 2003) shared that stress came in several forms and affected people of all ages and walks of life. This implies that life itself is stress related depending on the individual’s lifestyle and the type of cultural development. 

# Many studies have attempted to reveal the factors of stress among university students. (AAN et al., 2009) studied that the causes of stress are lack of sleep, financial and family problems. All the students reported that the financial was the main causes of stress. In another study by (Bulo & Dr. Marita G. Sanchez, 2014), working to people they do not know, trouble with parents, and relationship with opposite sex are the high causes of stress by students. The findings in (Ramachandiran & Dhanapal, 2018) showed clearly at the percentage of 78.2% which is majority of the respondents fell under the moderate level of stress. It was also proven that studies, peer pressure, family problems and financial problems are the sources of the stress.

# (Rana et al., 2019) stated that stress can be negative or positive to an individual. It is depending on the strength and persistence of the stress, the personality of an individual, cognitive appraisal of the stress, and social support. This study also stated that stress affects students in four categories which are academically, socially, physically and emotionally. Emotional symptoms of stress include anxiety and depression. (Mannadhan & Mohan, 2014) reveals that there is no difference in the level of depression, anxiety and stress based on their gender. Hence, the students are very low level of depression, anxiety and stress. 

# There are many strategies to coping with stress. (Ganesan et al., 2018) found that the meeting with friend, asking advice from others and talking to people to get emotional support are the best coping strategy preferred by the undergraduate students when dealing with stress. Researchers (Irshad et al., 2015) developed the coping scale for university students and revealed the five factor analysis solutions include solution focused coping, emotion coping, avoidance coping, seeking coping and spiritual coping. In other study, (Irpan et al., 2018) found that sleep, listen to music, go for eating, chatting with friend and do exercises are helpful to release the stress. Prayers, meditation, visiting relatives, changing eating habits, watching movies and online chatting are the coping strategies by the medical students that listed by (Shaikh et al., 2004). It can be concluded that the students create a positive way to manage their stress in terms of personal growth and feeling that the stress they went through could change them in a good way.

# METHODOLOGY

This study was done among 50 undergraduate students in Faculty of Plantation and Agrotechnology in UiTM Jasin, Melaka. They were second year on their study. Convenience sampling was used to select 50 samples of the students. Data collection method used in this study is direct questionnaire which was distributed to the students during lecture time. The researcher greets respondents and explain briefly the attention before giving the questionnaire to the respondents. The researcher waited for the respondents to complete the questionnaire. Data was analysed using descriptive analysis and chi square test. The variables of interest in this study are age, level of stress, factor of stress, stress reliever and consequences after stress.

**FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS**

This section explains the findings obtained from the survey carried out among 50 respondents consist of 25 male and 25 female students. In the term of age, the respondents were divided into 3 categories: 18 to 20, 21 to 23 and 24 to 26. The finding indicate that 62% of the respondents were age between 18 and 20 , 22% were age 21 to 23 and 16% were age more than 23. Figure 1 shows the classification of stress level among students. It shows that majority of the students under the moderate level of stress which is 54% followed by 32% of students have high level of stress.

<span class="chart">\[CHART\]</span>

Figure 1. Classification of stress level among respondents

This survey also to find the answer from students on the factor or causes of their stress. Out of 50 respondents, only 47 students responded to this question. Table 1 shows the findings that studies is the most factors of stress, which is 42.6%. This may cause by attending lectures on time, preparing for assignments, preparing individual or group projects and study hard for examination.

Table 1: Causes of stress among students

| Causes of stress   | Number of students | Percentage (%) |
| ------------------ | ------------------ | -------------- |
| Studies            | 20                 | 42.6           |
| Family             | 5                  | 10.6           |
| Friends            | 10                 | 21.3           |
| Financial problems | 12                 | 25.5           |

In response to the question consequences feel after the stress, 26% of the students respond that they experienced sadness after stress. From the total of 13 respondents who indicate the sadness is the effect of stress, (20%) were male while another 32% were female. Another impact of stress by students are anger (20%), anxiety (7%), over sleeping (7%), cannot control the eating (7%) and depression (6%). Majority which is (30%) reported that enough sleep was the best way to reduce the stress. 26% of the students reported that listening to music was the way to cope with stress. The answer of 20% of students reported that playing games is the way to prevent stress. Only a small number of students, 6 (12%) eating and surfing internet to deal with stress.

In this survey, the respondents were asked to state the person that they share their stress. Best friend is the best person that choose by most of students (38%) to share their stress. Followed by 26% share with parents. The surprising answer from two students indicate that stranger is the person they share their stress.

Table 2 shows the effects of stress based on their gender. The chi-square test was used to determine the relationship between these two categorical data. The p value 0.523 which is more than 0.05 suggest that there is no significant association between the effects of stress among the students and their gender.

Table 2: Association between effects of stress and gender

| Respondents | Male          | Female | Asymptotic Significance (2-sided) |       |
| ----------- | ------------- | ------ | --------------------------------- | ----- |
| Effect      | Anger         | 4      | 6                                 | 0.523 |
|             | Sadness       | 5      | 8                                 |       |
|             | Anxiety       | 4      | 3                                 |       |
|             | Over eating   | 3      | 4                                 |       |
|             | Over sleeping | 4      | 3                                 |       |
|             | Depression    | 5      | 1                                 |       |
|             | Total         | 25     | 25                                |       |

**CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS**

This study reveals that most university students under the moderate level of stress. Main stressor identified were studies such as attending lectures on time, preparing for assignments, preparing individual or group projects and study hard for examination. The frequently used coping strategy was sleeping while eating and surfing internet was the least frequently used coping strategy. Further, there is no relationship between effects of stress among male and female students. The limitation of this study was that the respondents in this drawn only from the Faculty of Plantation and Agrotechnology, UiTM Jasin, so that the findings cannot be generalized for students in other faculties. As a recommendation, more studies can be conducted with more faculties and a larger sample size.

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