Family environment and mental health of undergraduate university students

Pages: 16-21
Satyananda Panda (Department of Psychology, Sikkim University, Gangtok, Sikkim)

The family is the primary unit of the society to take care the material, physical and emotional needs of people. A good family environment leads to better well-being of the off-springs and endows them with better mental health. The present study was undertaken to examine the relationship between family environment and mental health of undergraduate university students. In this study, 60 participants (30 male and 30 female) of undergraduate university students were selected through disproportionate sampling procedure. The participants were assessed by using Family Environment Scale (FES) and Mental Health Battery (MHB) questionnaires. Data was analysed in terms of mean, standard deviation, t-test and coefficient of correlation. The statistical analysis revealed that there existed no significant relationship between any of the variables of family environment and mental health of undergraduate university students. Results indicated that there was significant gender difference among undergraduate university students on acceptance and caring as well as on intelligence. There also existed significant gender difference among them on the score of overall family environment. However, no significant gender difference was observed on other dimensions of mental health among undergraduate university students. Moderate to high degree mean scores of undergraduate university students can be observed on family environment subscales like cohesiveness, conflict, acceptance and caring; and also on adjustment dimension of mental health. The findings of the study will help to understand the role of family environment to enable the undergraduate university students to cope with the challenges that arise in these critical transitional periods. The study will suggest suitable measures to strengthen the mental health of undergraduate university students.