Towards a health promoting university: descriptive findings on health, wellbeing and academic performance amongst university students in Australia

Sanci, Lena; Williams, Ian; Russell, Melissa; Chondros, Patty; Duncan, Ann-Maree; Tarzia, Laura; Peter, Divya; Lim, Madeleine S. Y.; Tomyn, Adrian; Minas, Harry

doi:10.1186/s12889-022-14690-9

Table 6 Psychosocial Stressors for all students (N = 14,880) and by Local (N = 9,398) and International students (N = 5,482)

From: Towards a health promoting university: descriptive findings on health, wellbeing and academic performance amongst university students in Australia

	Total			Local			International
	n	%	Wt %	n	%	Wt %	n	%	Wt %
Academic stressors experienced while at University	12438			7993			4445
Time management issues/procrastination	8359	67.2	66.5	5810	72.7	72.2	2549	57.3	56.5
Problems achieving work/life/study balance	6901	55.5	54.4	5182	64.8	63.7	1719	38.7	38.0
Feeling too much pressure to succeed	6694	53.8	52.8	4394	55.0	53.9	2300	51.7	50.9
Exam anxiety	5954	47.9	47.3	3711	46.4	45.9	2243	50.5	49.7
Difficulty coping with study issues	5706	45.9	44.9	4077	51.0	50.0	1629	36.6	35.9
Hours of paid work in past week
0	6753	46.2	46.5	3014	32.6	32.8	3739	69.6	69.5
1 to 20	5992	41.0	40.7	4597	49.7	49.4	1395	26.0	26.0
> 20	1880	12.9	12.8	1643	17.8	17.7	237	4.4	4.5
Experienced financial difficulty while at university
Yes	3434	27.6	27.4	2491	31.2	30.8	943	21.2	21.4
No	9004	72.4	72.6	5502	68.8	69.2	3502	78.8	78.6
Type of financial difficulty experienced in last 12 months	13072			8345			4727
Ran out of food and could not afford more	1328	10.2	10.1	948	11.4	11.2	380	8.0	8.2
Could not afford to buy medicine (prescribed or over the counter)	1245	9.5	9.3	964	11.6	11.2	281	5.9	6.0
Sometimes required to provide services in exchange of accommodation	1364	10.4	10.4	803	9.6	9.6	561	11.9	11.9
Experienced homelessness
Yes	361	2.4	2.5	154	1.7	1.7	207	3.8	3.8
No	14391	97.6	97.5	9174	98.3	98.3	5217	96.2	96.2
Experienced discrimination	12452			8000			4452
At the university	3251	26.1	25.5	1950	24.4	23.7	1301	29.2	28.8
In the wider community^a	6565	52.7	51.2	4286	53.6	51.5	2279	51.2	50.5
Gender	3148	25.3	22.9	2592	32.4	29.5	556	12.5	11.3
Race	2935	23.6	23.6	1424	17.8	17.8	1511	33.9	33.8
Ethnicity	2151	17.3	17.2	1237	15.5	15.4	914	20.5	20.4
Religion	944	7.6	7.6	575	7.2	7.2	369	8.3	8.2
Sexuality	861	6.9	6.9	706	8.8	8.8	155	3.5	3.6
Another minority status	274	2.2	2.2	163	2.0	2.0	111	2.5	2.5
Other discrimination	401	3.2	3.1	307	3.8	3.7	94	2.1	2.1
Ever afraid in an adult intimate relationship^b
Yes	1875	22.5	21.4	1339	24.0	22.7	536	19.5	18.8
No	6457	77.5	78.6	4248	76.0	77.3	2209	80.5	81.2
Experienced unwanted sexual contact
Yes	3741	30.5	28.5	3020	38.2	35.9	721	16.6	15.4
No	8509	69.5	71.5	4893	61.8	64.1	3616	83.4	84.6
Experienced unwanted sexual contact in past 12 months^c
Yes	769	12.3	11.8	576	12.6	12.2	193	11.4	11.1
No	5501	87.7	88.2	3994	87.4	87.8	1507	88.6	88.9
Had sex when you did not want to in past 12 months^c
Yes	769	12.3	11.8	576	12.6	12.2	193	11.4	11.1
No	5501	87.7	88.2	3994	87.4	87.8	1507	88.6	88.9
Victim of forced sex
Yes	979	8.0	7.3	755	9.5	8.7	224	5.2	4.8
No	11281	92.0	92.7	7158	90.5	91.3	4123	94.8	95.2
Victim of attempted forced sex
Yes	935	7.6	7.0	750	9.5	8.7	185	4.2	3.9
No	11331	92.4	93.0	7163	90.5	91.3	4168	95.8	96.1

^aExperienced at least one form of discrimination of the seven forms listed below– responses are not mutually exclusive
^bTotal students who had been in an intimate adult relationship = 8,336; 5591 (60.5% of 8,042) Local students and 2745 (61.3% of 4,481) International students
^cFor students who reported having experienced intercourse (vaginal and/or oral) in the past 12 months (Total students with a response = 6270; 4,570 Local students and 1,700 International students)

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