Acculturative Stress, Social Support And Loneliness Among International Students In Central South University

BackgroundThere are many complex challenges facing students travelling to other countries to undertake university or other educational courses, particularly if their home country culture is strikingly different from the host country culture. It is not surprising that the physical and psychological well-being of students, as well as their academic performance, can be affected by these adjustment challenges. Thus there is a need to examine which factors contribute to international student's acculturation process.ObjectiveTo understand the acculturation process of international students in Central South University, by examining the relationship between acculturative stress, perceived social support and loneliness and related factors. By this we also aim to determine if there is a relationship between their demographics features and acculturative stress; social support and loneliness, and also determine their general stress symptoms level. As the same way contribute to the literature on international student's adjustment in Chinese university particularly in Central South University (CSU) and finally provide recommendation for intervention to the CSU and also to the international students about acculturative stress and the ways to deal with it.Content and instrumentData was collected by administering a questionnaire adapted from previous researches, from four campuses of CSU. There were three hypotheses for this research. The first hypothesis predicted that the respondents'socio-cultural and demographic characteristics will significantly predict acculturative stress. The second hypothesis predicted that the respondents'socio-cultural and demographic characteristics will significantly influence their perception of social support and loneliness. Furthermore, the third hypothesis predicted that there will be a direct relationship between the level of acculturative stress, perceived social support and loneliness.In this study, the following instruments:general stress questionnaire, acculturative stress scale, multidimensional scale of perceived social support and revised UCLA loneliness scale were used to measure general stress symptoms, acculturative stress, social support and loneliness respectively. Data analysis was carried using SPSS 16.0. Descriptive statistics, univariate and multivariate statistical analyses were employed to summarize and test the proposed hypotheses. ResultThe results of this study showed that adjustment to the life in CSU and cultural differences, (it's hard being away from the people I love=32.3% and I miss the familiar way of my life in my own country=31.2%); study level of satisfaction (F=7.666, P=0.000) and language challenge like Chinese use in school (F=9.227, P=0.000) and Chinese use in daily life (F=11.140, P=0.000).000) were significant issues for international students. Student race also revealed to be significant (F=2.861, P=0.038) with their perception of acculturative stress. It was interesting to ascertain that the cultural stress items that produce the least concern in students were feelings of lack of safety (69.6%), not belong at the university and uncomfortable in Chinese culture (60.8%). The study also showed that loneliness was significant with gender (t=4.046, P=0.046), and we also found that social support with respondents religious preference was significant (F=3.009, P=0.020). It seems also that social support have relation with gender, but it's not statistically significant (t=2.798,P=0.096) due probably to the small size of our sample. The same conclusion applies respectively to loneliness with respondent's religious preference (F=2.31,P=0.060) and also to social support with length of stay (F=2.364, P=0.097). The hypothesis three stated that there will be a direct relationship between the level of acculturative stress, perceived social support and loneliness, was not confirmed and Pearson correlation coefficient, only showed significant correlation between stress and loneliness (r=0.307, P<0.01).The result of the multivariate analysis showed that Compared with Asian, Arab tends to have higher levels of stress (OR=15.091). For the religious preference, compared to Buddhist, Christian and Muslim have lower levels of stress (OR=0.131, OR=0.033). About their personal ability to deal with stress, those who responded they are confident about themselves to deal with the stress, have lower level of stress. Compared to those who responded they are somewhat confident and not confident. Compared with Asian, Arab and black tend to have higher level of acculturative stress (OR=3.444,OR=2.931).ConclusionsIn conclusion the results of the current study provide additional information about the impact of acculturative stress, general stress symptom, social support and loneliness on international students in CSU, but there is a need for more work to be done. Future researchers should focus their attention in identifying ways on how to increase international student's awareness of acculturative stress and way to deal with it. The results of this study should be interpreted with caution because of the small size of our sample and the disproportionate number between male and female.