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Stress, self-compassion, and well-being during the transition to college
Abstract
Rationale The transition to college presents a period of vulnerability to mental illness, and opportunity for positive psychosocial development.Objective The present study sought to build an explanatory person-centered and contextualized model of student wellbeing in the transition to college.Method Participants were entering first year undergraduate students at a large public university in the United States (n = 5509). Online survey data were collected at three time points across the academic year, with outcomes of depression and anxiety, thriving, and grade point average, and predictors including resilient coping, self-compassion, social support, school connections and the acute and chronic stressors experienced during the transition to college. Latent growth curves were used to examine trajectories of change in depression and anxiety, and a cross-lagged panel model was used to describe a system of how all measured variables influenced each other over time.Results There were four main findings. On average, students experienced moderate increases in depression and anxiety from the summer before college through the spring, with wide variability across students and no clear patterning by demographic groups. Second, self-compassion was the strongest and most consistent predictor of successful transitions. Third, chronic stressors were strongly predictive of more negative outcomes, and self-compassion and coping skills did not buffer their effects. Finally, people most likely to experience chronic stressors over the school year included women, people who identify as sexual minorities and first-generation students.Conclusions Programming to support entering college students should seek to foster self-compassion, while also limiting chronic stressors and reducing their inequitable distribution across the student population.
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“Self-compassion is considered a protective factor against academic stress [39,95], homesickness, depression, and problems in the transition to college [96,97]”
From Optimization of a Transdiagnostic Mobile Emotion Regulation Intervention for University Students: Protocol for a Microrandomized Trial (2023) · cites this paper as [96]
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“Experiencing chronic stressors in the first year of university is associated with poorer mental health outcomes, and chronic stressors are more common among first-generation students (Kroshus et al., 2021).”
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“It is hypothesised that one of the strongest and most consistent positive predictors of successful transition to higher education, particularly for students dealing with mental health problems, is self-compassion [49].”
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“This has been demonstrated in a longitudinal study that assessed levels of self‐compassion and mental health as high school students transitioned to university (Kroshus et al., 2021).”
Background
Metadata
- Authors
- Kroshus, E., Hawrilenko, M., & Browning, A.
- Affiliations
- University of Washington (US)
- Corresponding author
- Kroshus, Emily
- Venue
- Social Science & Medicine
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2021-01
- Volume
- 269
- Pages
- 113514
- ISSN
- 0277-9536 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3098991845
- Cited by
- 142
- References
- 86
- Citations by year
- 2026: 27 · 2025: 28 · 2024: 31 · 2023: 27 · 2022: 17 · 2021: 12
- FWCI
- 21.12
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Social Science & Medicine (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- University of Washington
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Student Stress and Coping
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
- Social Sciences › Education › Higher Education Research Studies
- Keywords
- transition to college, self-compassion, stress, student well-being, depression, anxiety, thriving, grade point average, resilient coping, social support, school connectedness, chronic stressors, first-generation college students, sexual minorities, gender differences, first-year students, mental health
- MeSH terms
- Adaptation, Psychological, Anxiety, Empathy, Female, Humans, Students, Universities
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