The role of Perception of Academic Stress and Emotion-focused Coping Style for International Medical Students’ Mental Health in China

Lots of previous researches had suggested that medical students are higher rates of mental health problems than other age-matched groups, however, there was little attention caring about international medical students’ mental health status and influential factors. The research aims to investigate the present mental health status of international medical students and assess the role of perception of academic stress, emotion-focused coping style in international medical students’ mental health in China. By using data of international medical students (17-27 years old) providing information on their demographics, Perception of Academic Stress, The Coping Style Questionnaire, Generalized Anxiety Disorder Assessment (GAD-7), the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale Revised (CESD-R10), the WHO Well-being Index Scale (WHO-5), this study found that the depression (mean score=13.55, SD=5.85) and anxiety (mean score=9.78 , SD=4.49) was high among international medical students, perception of academic stress was a significant positive predictor of depression (β=0.22) and anxiety (β=0.17) , the emotion-focused coping style was a significant negative predictor of depression (β=-0.90) and anxiety (β=-0.69) and have positive association with well-being (β=0.97).