Five days of stress and coping in the lives of college students

Day-to-day aspects of coping, stress, and distress were examined during an academic week for college students. Male (N - 36) and female (N = 32) introductory psychology students at Texas Tech University completed self-report measures of stress, coping, and distress for the previous 24-hour period for five consecutive days. Participants completed the Daily Stress Inventory (DSI, Brantley, & Jones, 1989), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS, Cohen, Kamarck, & Mermelstein, 1983), Coping Responses Inventory (CRI-Adult, Moos, 1993), Problem-Focused Styles of Coping Inventory (Heppner, Cook, Wright, & Johnson,1995), Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS, Zung,1971), Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D, Radloff, 1977), and a demographic questionnaire. The most commonly reported stressors were relationship and academic problems. Students reported more academic problems at Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday measurements. Relationship problems were more commonly reported on Monday and Friday. No gender differences in types of stressors/problems were noted. Cross-lagged panel correlations demonstrated significant autocorrelations for approach, avoidant, reactive, repressive, and suppressive coping at each measurement. Likewise, significant autocorrelations for anxiety, depression, and perceived stress were found. This may indicate general dispositional styles of behavior. College students reported using approach coping strategies more frequently than avoidant coping strategies. Avoidant coping strategies negatively predicted depressive symptoms. However, avoidant coping strategies did not predict anxiety symptoms. Approach coping did not predict either anxiety or depressive symptoms. However, depressive symptoms predicted the number and impact of stressful events.