Abstract
Aim
The purpose of present study is to examine the impact of aspects of spirituality on stress, anxiety, depression among engineering students.
Subject and method
Data were collected from 914 engineering students of Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India. A self-administered questionnaire and DASS-21 scale were used to measure spirituality and depression, anxiety, stress in current study. Pearson correlation is used to examine the relationship between spirituality dimensions and stress, anxiety, depression; multiple regression is used to examine the most influencing spirituality dimension; independent sample t-test is used to examine the gender difference in spirituality, stress, anxiety, depression among engineering students.
Result
Findings of the study propagated the positive and significant relationship between universal consciousness and anxiety of engineering students.
Conclusion
The most influencing spirituality dimensions are relationship with self and relationship with others. The sense of spirituality of female students is stronger than that of male students.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abdel-Khalek AM (2010) Quality of life, subjective well-being, and religiosity in Muslim college students. Qual Life Res 19:1133–1143. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-010-9676-7
Adewuya Ao ola BA, Afolabioo (2006) Validity of the patient health questionnaire (PHQ-9) as a screening tool for depression amongst Nigerian university students. J Affect Disord 96:89–93
Amram Y (2007) The seven dimensions of spiritual intelligence: an ecumenical grounded theory paper presented at the 115th Annual (August 2007) Conference of the American Psychological Association San Francisco CA. Summary available on http://www.yosiamram.net/papers. Accessed May 2019
Anderson NB (1998) Levels of analysis in health science a framework for integrating socio behavioral and. Biomed Res Ann New York Acad Sci 840:563–576
Andrew G, Slade T (2001) Interpreting scores on the Kessler psychological distress scale Australian and New Zealand. J Public Health 25:494–497
Ano GG, Vasconcelles EB (2005) Religious coping and psychological adjustment to stress: a meta-analysis. J Clin Psychol 61:461–480
Anson O, Bernstein J, Hobfoll SE (1984) Anxiety and performance in two ego threatening situations. J Pers Assess 48:168–172. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa4802_11
Bagozzi R, Yi Y (1988) On the evaluation of structural equation models. J Acad Market Sci 16:74–94. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02723327
Bandalos DL, Yates K, Thorndike-Christ T (1995) Effects of math self-concept, perceived self-efficacy and attributions for failure and success on test anxiety. J Educ Psychol 87:611–623
Bassols AMS, Carneiro BB, Guimaraes GC, Okabayashi LMS, Carvalho FG, Silva B, Cortes GN, Rohde LAP, Eizirik CL (2015) Stress and coping in a sample of medical students in Brazil. Arch Clin Psychiatr 42(1):1–5
Baum A (1990) Stress intrusive imagery and chronic distress. Health Psychol 9:653–675
Baum A, Polsusnzy D (1999) Health psychology: mapping bio behavioral contributions to health and illness. Annu Rev Psychol 50:137–163. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.50.1.137
Bayram N, Bilgel N (2008) The prevalence and socio-demographic correlations of depression, anxiety and stress among a group of university students. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol 43:667–672. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-008-0345
Branden N (1994) The six pillars of self-esteem. Bantam Books, New York
Brougham RR, Zail CM, Mendoza CM, Miller JR (2009) Stress sex differences and coping strategies among college students. Curr Psychol 28:85–97. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-009-9047-0
Brown CG (2007) Secularization the growth of militancy and the spiritual revolution: religious change and gender power in Britain 1901–2001. Hist Res 80:393–418
Bryant AN (2007) Gender differences in spiritual development during the college years. Sex Roles 56(11–12):835–846. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-007-9240-2
Bryme B (2000) Relationship between anxiety, fear, self estee,m and coping strategies in adolescence. J Educ Psychol 35(137):201–215
Bryman A, Cramer D (2005) Quantitative data analysis with SPSS12 and 13: a guide for social scientists. CRC, Boca Raton, FL
Buchanan JL (2012) Prevention of depression in the college student population a review of the literature. Arch Psychiatr Nurs 26:21–42
Buchko KJ (2004) Religious beliefs and practices of college women as compared to college men. J Coll Stud Dev 45(1):89–98. https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2004.0004
Carson RC, Butcher JN, Mineka S (1998) Abnormal psychology and modern life. Longman, New York
Clark LA, Watson D (1995) Constructing validity: basic issues in objective scale development. Psychol Assess 7:309–319
Cohen S, Kessler R, Gordon L (1995) Strategies for measuring stress in studies of psychiatric and physical disorders. In: Cohen S, Kessler R, Gordon L (eds) Measuring stress. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 3–26
Cook CCH (2004) Addiction and spirituality. Addiction 99:539–551
Cyranowski JM, Frank E, Young E, Shear K (2000) Adolescent onset of the gender difference in lifetime rates of major depression. Arch Gen Psychiatry 57:21–27
Daniel K (2013) Loneliness and depression among university students in Kenya. Glob J Hum-Soc Sci Res 13. https://doi.org/10.17406/GJHSS
de Jager Meezenbroek E, Garssen B, Van den Berg M, Tuytel G, Van Dierendonck D, Visser A, Schaufeli WB (2012) Measuring spirituality as a universal human experience: development of the spiritual attitude and involvement list (SAIL). J Psychosoc Oncol 30(2):141–167. https://doi.org/10.1080/07347332.2011.65125
Delaney C (2003) Spirituality: development refinement and psychometric testing of an instrument to assess the human spiritual dimension. PhD Thesis, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT
Dusselier L, Dunn B, Wang Y, Shelley II MC, Whalen DF (2005) Personal health academic and environmental predictors of stress for residence hall students. J Am Coll Heal 54:15–24 https://doi.org/10.3200/JACH.54.1.15-24.org
Dyrbye LN, Thomas MR, Shanafelt TD (2006) Systematic review of depression, anxiety and other indicators of psychological distress among US and Canadian medical students. Acad Med 81:354–373
Exline JJ, Yali AM, Lobel M (1999) When God disappoints: difficulty forgiving God and its role in negative emotion. J Health Psychol 4:365–379
Exline JJ, Yali AM, Sanderson WC (2000) Guilt, discord, and alienation: the role of religious strain in depression and suicidality. J Clin Psychol 56:1481–1496
Fetzer Institute (1999) Multidimensional measurement of religiousness/spirituality for use in health research. Report, Fetzer Institute/National Institute on Aging, Kalamazoo, MI
Fisher S, Hood B (1987) The stress of the transition to university: a longitudinal study of psychological disturbance absent-mindedness and vulnerability to homesickness. Br J Psychol 78:425–441
Gallup GH (1998) Remarkable surge of interest in spiritual growth noted as next century approaches. Emerging Trends 12(1)
Garson D (2010) Factor analysis. http://faculty.chass.ncsu.edu/garson/PA765/factor.htm. Accessed March 5 2013
Goebert D, Thompson D, Takeshita J, Beach C, Bryson P, Ephgrave K (2009) Depressive symptoms in medical students and residents: a multi school study. Acad Med 84:236–241
Graham S, Furr S, Flowers C, Burke MT (2001) Research and theory religion and spirituality in coping with stress. Couns Values 46(1):2–13. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2161-007x.2001.tb00202
Hair JF, Black WC, Babin BJ, Anderson RE, Tatham RL (2006) Multivariate data analysis, 6th edn. Pearson, Upper Saddle River, NJ
Hall TW, Edward KJ (1996) The initial development and factor analysis of the spiritual assessment inventory. J Psychol Theol 24:233–246
Hall NC, Chipperfield JG, Perry RP, Ruthig JC, Goetz T (2006) Primary and secondary control in academic development: gender-specific implications for stress and health in college students. Anxiet Stress Coping 19(2):189–210
Hammermeister J, Flint M, El-Alayli A, Ridnour H, Peterson M (2005) Gender differences in spiritual well-being: are females more spiritually-well than males? Am J Health Stud 20(2):80–84
Hay D, Nye R (2006) The spirit of the child, revised edn. Kingsley, London
Heelas P (2005) The spiritual revolution: why religion is giving way to spirituality. Blackwell, Malden, MA
Heinonen K, Raikkonen K, Keltikangas-Jarvinen L (2005) Self-esteem in early and late adolescence predicts dispositional optimism-pessimism in adulthood: a 21-year longitudinal study. Personal Individ Differ 39:511–521. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2005.01.026
Hembree R (1990) The nature effects and relief of mathematics anxiety. J Res Math Educ 211:33–46. https://doi.org/10.2307/749455
Heppner PP, Heppner MJ, Lee D, Wang Y, Park H, WL (2006) Development and validation of a collectivist coping style inventory. J Counsel Psychol 53(1):107–125
Higher Education Research Institute (2004) The spiritual life of college students: a national study of students’ search for meaning and purpose. http://www.spirituality.ucla.edu/spirituality/reports. Accessed June 1 2006
Hollins S (2005) Spirituality and religion: exploring the relationship. Nurs Manag 12(6):22–26
Howard S, Welbourn D (2004) The spirit at work phenomenon. Azure, London
Hsiao YC, Chien LY, Wu LY, Chiang CM, Huang SY (2010) Spiritual health clinical practice stress depressive tendency and health-promoting behaviors among nursing students. J Adv Nurs 66(7):1612–1622. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2648.2010.05328
Hutcheson G, Sofroniou N (1999) The multivariate social scientist: introductory statistics using generalized linear models. Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA. https://doi.org/10.4135/9780857028075
John F, Adekunle A, Jamal M, Tashia B (2011) Religious commitment, social support and life satisfaction among college students. Coll Stud J 45:393–400
Kaiser H (1974) An index of factorial simplicity. Psychometrika 39(1):31–36
Karakas F (2010) Spirituality and performance in organizations: a literature review. J Bus Ethics 94(1):89–106
Kaur S, Deepti SS, Lal M (2014) Prevalence and correlates of depression among college going students of district Amritsar India. Int Res J Medical Sci 2:5–9
Kaya M, Genc M, Kaya B, Pehlivan E (2007) Prevalence of depressive symptoms, ways of coping and related factors among medical school and health services higher education students. Turk J Psychiatry 18:1–9
Kessler RC, Berglund P, Demler O (2003) Epidemiology of major depressive disorder: results from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R). J Am Med Assoc 289:3095–3105. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.289.23.3095
Khan I, Singh N (2013) A study on gender differences on gratitude, spirituality and forgiveness among school teachers. Int J Appl Sci Eng 1(1):9–14
King D B (2008) Rethinking claims of spiritual intelligence: a definition model & measure. MSc Thesis, Trent University, Peterborough, ON
Kitzow MA (2003) The mental health need of today’s college students: challenges and recommendation. NASPA J 41:167–181
Kneipp LB, Kelly KE, Cyphers B (2009) Feeling at peace with college: religiosity spiritual well-being and college adjustment individual. Differ Res 7(3):188–196
Kulsoom B, Afsar NA (2015) Stress anxiety and depression among medical students. J Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat 11:1713–1722
Kumaraswamy N (2013) Academic stress anxiety and depression among college students: a brief review. Int Rev Soc Sci Humanit 5:135–143
Lambert Y (2004) Changing trends in religious feeling in Europe and Russia. Rev Francaise Sociol 45:307–338
Larson DB, Sawyers JP, McCullough ME (1998) Scientific research on spirituality and health: a report based on the scientific Progress in spirituality conferences. John M. Templeton Foundation, New York
Lovibond SH, Lovibond PF (1995) Manual for the depression anxiety stress scales, 2nd edn. Psychology Foundation of Australia, Sydney
MacBeth A, Gumley A (2012) Exploring compassion: a meta-analysis of the association between self-compassion and psychopathology. Clinical Psychol Rev 32(6):545–552
MacDonald DA (2000) The expressions of spirituality inventory test development validation and scoring information. University of Detroit Mercy, Detroit, IL
Maloney EA, Waechter S, Risko EF, Fugelsang JA (2012) Reducing the sex difference in math anxiety: the role of spatial processing ability. Learn Individ Differ 22:380–384. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2012.01.001
Mascaro N, Rosen DH, Morey LC (2004) The development construct validity and clinical utility of the spiritual meaning scale. Personal Individ Differ 37:845–860
McConnell KM, Pargament KI, Ellison CG, Flannelly KJ (2006) Examining the links between spiritual struggles and symptoms of psychopathology in a national sample. J Clin Psychol 62(12):1469–1484. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcip.20325
McCullough ME, Emmons RA, Tsang J (2002) The grateful disposition: a conceptual and empirical topography. J Pers Soc Psychol 82:112–127
McSherry W, Cash K (2004) The language of spirituality: an emerging taxonomy. Int J Nurs Stud 41:151–161. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0020-7489(03)00114-7
Misra R, McKean M (2000) College students academic stress and its relation to their anxiety time management and leisure satisfaction. Am J Health Stud (16):41–51
Moberg O (2002) Assessing and measuring spirituality confronting dilemmas of universal and particular evaluative criteria. J Adult Dev (9):47–60
Mongrain M, Chin JM, Shapira LB (2011) Practicing compassion increases happiness and self-esteem. J Happiness Stud 12:963–981
Mooney M (2005) Religion at America’s most selective colleges: some findings from the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen (NLSF). Office of Population Research Princeton University, Princeton. https://paa2006.princeton.edu/papers/60376. Accessed May 2019
Muldoon M, King N (1995) Spirituality health care and bioethics. J Relig Health 34:329–349
Murray CJL, Lopez AD (1996) The global burden of disease: a comprehensive assessment of mortality and disability from diseases injuries and risk factors in 1990 and projected to 2020. Harvard School of Public Health, Boston
Murray RB, Zentner JB (1989) Nursing concepts for health promotion. Prentice Hall, London, 259 pp
National Health Morbidity Survey (2015) Institute for Public Health & Institute for Health Systems Research. National Institutes of Health Ministry of Health Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur Indonesia
Neff K D (2018) Setting the record straight about the self-compassion scale. Mindfulness. https://self-compassion.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Neff2018_Letter.pdf. Accessed May 2019
NIMH (2008) National Institute of Mental Health. http://www.nimh.nih.gov. Accessed May 2019
Nunnally JC (1978) Psychometric theory, 2nd edn. McGraw-Hill, New York
Ojha (2002) A competitive study of social anxiety and mental health of handicapped and normal adolescents. Indian Rev 59:114–120
Ozorak EW (2003) Culture gender faith: the social construction of the person–God relationship. Int J Psychol Religion 13:249–257
Pargament KI (1997) The psychology of religion and coping: theory research practice. Guilford, New York
Pargament KI, Smith BW, Koenig HG, Perez L (1998a) Patterns of positive and negative religious coping with major life stressors. J Sci Study Relig 37:710–724
Pargament KI, Zinnbauer BJ, Scott AB, Butter EM, Zerowin J, Stanik P (1998b) Red flags and religious coping: identifying some religious warning signs among people in crisis. J Clin Psychol 54:77–89
Parks SD (2000) Big questions worthy dreams: mentoring young adults in their search for meaning purpose and faith. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco
Peterson C, Seligman MEP (2004) Character strengths and virtues: a classification and handbook. Oxford University Press, New York
Resnick MD, Harris LJ, Blum RW (1993) The impact of caring and connectedness on adolescent health and well-being. J Paedeatr Child Health 29(Suppl 1):S3–S9
Richards D, Richardson T, Timulak L, Viganò N, Mooney J, Doherty G (2016) Predictors of depression severity in a treatment-seeking sample. Int J Clin Health Psychol 16:221–229. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijchp.2016.02.001
Roof WC (1993) A generation of seekers: the spiritual journeys of the baby boom generation. Harper, San Francisco
Rovers M, Kocum L (2010) Development of a holistic model of spirituality. J Spirit Mental Health 12:2–24
Scherer RF, Wiebe FA, Luther DC, Adams JS (1988) Dimensionality of coping: factor stability using the ways of coping questionnaire. Psychol Rep 62:763–770
Seidlitz L, Abernethy AD, Duberstein PR, Evinger JS, Chang TH, Lewis B (2002) Development of the spiritual transcendence index. J Sci Study Relig (41):39–453
Seligman LD, Wuyek LA (2007) Correlates of separation anxiety symptoms among first semester college students: an exploratory study. J Psychol 141(2):135–146
Seligman M, Walker E, Rosenhan D (2001) Abnormal psychology. Norton, New York
Sharma RR (1979) Self-concept level of aspiration and mental health as factor in academic achievement. PhD Thesis, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India
Smith C, Denton ML (2005) Soul searching: the religious and spiritual lives of American teenagers. Oxford University Press, New York
Smith TB, McCullough ME, Poll J (2003) Religiousness and depression: evidence for a main effect and the moderating influence of stressful life events. Psychol Bull 129:614–636
Stark KD, Brookman CS (1994) Theory and family-school intervention. In: The handbook of family–school intervention: a system perspective. Allyn and Bacon, Boston
Taliaferro LA, Rienzo BA, Pigg RM, Mille MD, Dodd VJ (2009) Spiritual well-being and suicidal ideation among college students. J Am Coll Heal 58(1):83–90. https://doi.org/10.3200/JACH.58.1.83-90
Tan KL, Yadav H (2015) Depression among the urban poor in peninsular Malaysia: a community based cross-sectional study. J Health Psychol 18:121–127. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105311433908
Thompson LY, Snyder CR, Hoffman L, Michael ST, Rasmussen HN, Billings LS, Heinze L, Neufeld JE, Shorey HS, Roberts JC, Roberts DE (2005) Dispositional forgiveness of self others and situations. J Pers 73:313–359
Turner RP, Lukoff D, Barnhouse RT, Lu FG (1995) Religious or spiritual problem: a culturally sensitive diagnostic category in the DSM-IV. J Nerv Ment Dis 183:435–444
Underwood LG, Teresi JA (2002) The daily spiritual experience scale: development theoretical description, reliability exploratory factor analysis and preliminary construct validity using health-related data. Ann Behav Med 24:22–33
Vaughan F (1991) Spiritual issues in psychotherapy. J Transpersonal Psychol 23:105–119
Wang X (2014) Subjective well-being associated with size of social network and social support of elderly. J Health Psychol 10:1–6
Wong SY, Lua PL (2011) Anxiety and depressive symptoms among communities in the east coast of peninsular Malaysia: a rural exploration Malays. J Psychiatry 20:59–71
Wood BT, Worthington EL Jr, Exline JJ, Yali AM, Aten JD, McMinn MR (2010) Development, refinement, and psychometric properties of the Attitudes Toward God Scale (ATGS-9). Psychol Relig Spiritual 2:148–167
Funding
Authors have not received fund from any source.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Ethical approval
This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.
Informed consent
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants for whom identifying information is included in this article.
Approval of college ethical committee
To conduct an ethical research, a written consent from the Dean of Student Welfare, wellness wardens and professors employed by the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee was undertaken in the present study. Students participated voluntarily in the study without any compensation.
Additional information
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Negi, A.S., Khanna, A. & Aggarwal, R. Spirituality as predictor of depression, anxiety and stress among engineering students. J Public Health (Berl.) 29, 103–116 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-019-01092-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-019-01092-2