Mindfulness, hardiness, perceived stress among engineering and BDS students

Pages:514-517
M. Vinothkumar, V. Vinu and R. Anshya (Department of Psychology, St. Agnes Centre for Post-Graduation and Research, Mangalore)

Students pursuing professional courses like engineering, medical, life science etc., are frequently overwhelmed by perceived stress and greater susceptibility to engaging in high risk healthy behavior. It was hypnotizing thatthe hardiness and mindfulness would moderate the effect of the stressor and act effectively in stressful situations. For that, cross-sectional research design was used and 80 engineering and 80 medical (BDS) students from different colleges in Mangalore were involved. The Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory, Hardiness scale, and Perceived Stress Scale were administered and reliability and validity of the tool were checked. The results of correlation analysis showed that Mindfulness is positively and significantly correlated with Commitment and Control, whereas Perceived stress is negatively correlated with Mindfulness, Commitment, and, Challenge. The multiple regressions showed that one of the hardiness factors- Challenge and Mindfulness construct tend to negatively associate with the criterion variable. The results imply that internal resources such as hardiness factor-challenge and mindfulness act as a shield to protect from stress. The implications of the results are discussed with possible intervention to improve the personality hardiness and mindfulness among the students.