Coping Styles and Socio-Demographic Variables as Predictors of Psychological Well-Being among International Students in China

Abstract

The study examined whether coping styles (reflective, suppressive, and reactive coping) predict the level of psychological well-being among international students in China. Living in a situation where the impact of acculturation stress is supposed to be rather high. In particular, we looked for any differences in preferred coping styles of university students to see the relationship between coping style and well-being. The participants were 145 students who were recruited with the support of offices of student’s affairs of universities. They completed an online survey comprising the WHO Well-Being Index (WHO-5), the Problem-focused Styles of Coping Inventory (PF-SOC), and a socio-demographic questionnaire. According to the result, Chinese language and health status are significantly positively related to well-being. After controlling for socio-demographic variables, coping exerted a high influence on the affective and functional state of international students. Reflective coping turned out to be a relatively stronger predictor of a high level of psychological well-being, whereas suppressive coping are predictive of a low level of psychological well-being. Also, reactive coping is rather dysfunctional but much less so than suppressive coping. Counseling services need to pay attention to the relatively high percentage of students with poor psychological well-being. Improving students’ coping strategies may be an efficient way to improve their psychological well-being in academic/university and general life contexts.