Students’ Level of Stress as Related to Some Indicators of Lifestyle / Nivo stresa studenata u odnosu na neke pokazatelje životnog stila

Abstract

A 15-item questionnaire for assessment of stress was applied on a sample of 332 students (age from 19 to 27, 184 males and 148 females). It has been found that over 40% of students have elevated stress levels. The empirical results significantly deviated from the normal distribution. Two groups of participants stood out; the greater group had very elevated levels of stress, while the smaller group had very low average values. When answering questions related to stress, respondents evaluated three elements of lifestyle: the quantity and quality of everyday physical activity, subjective feeling of health and regularity of health checks. Results show that students are not active enough physically and that they rarely check their health. The analysis of variance showed that the highest level of stress is present in students who rated themselves as passive sports lovers, while athletes, amateurs and unexpectedly those who are anti-sports expressed significantly lower levels of stress. Significantly higher levels of stress were present in students who rated their health as poor, while respondents who regularly check their health had the lowest level of stress. Men had higher levels of stress than women.