Study On The Psychological Reaction And Coping Strategies Of The Undergraduates When Confronting Infectious Diseases

Along with the industrial construction, air is polluted and environmental quality becomes worsen; undergraduates are therefore a vulnerable population to confront the infectious disease. So the physical and mental health research about undergraduates was given increasing concerns. Although tremendous study paid attention to the undergraduates’ psychological effects and coping strategy in front of the infectious diseases, most of them focused on the psychological investigation, prevention and control method during the pandemic period of SARS and bird flu. Thus, investigation on the psychological impacts and coping strategies of the undergraduates during non-epidemic period was limited. The objective of present study was to characterize the psychological reactions of the infectious diseases on the undergraduates and focus on their coping strategies. The result could assist us to understand the reasons of the reactions and further help them to deal with the psychological problems caused by the infectious diseases. In addition, our study will provide new perspective for the undergraduates’ psychological education, which provides valuable information for the managers and researchers in colleges and universities to pertinently carry out the mental health education in the future.Qualitative research methods combined with quantitative research methods were applied to explore the undergraduates’ psychological reaction and coping strategies of infectious diseases. Specific research conclusions are as follows:1. The infectious diseases exert different levels of negative influence on the undergraduates, which mainly manifested in three aspects: The first one is the negative emotions, the second one is avoidance behaviours, and the third one refers to negative cognition(such as, fear, anxiety, depression, loneliness, pessimistic, helpless, escape, inferiority, etc.).2. Undergraduates mainly adopt positive strategies to cope with infectious diseases, including seeking social support, and actively solving the problem. Seeking social support is mainly related with the community prevention and control measures, health education and social support; actively solving problems refers to help-seeking in daily life, personal values and initiative. In health education in colleges and universities, the mental health education should be strengthened, which should promote undergraduates’ ability to actively solve the problem, and help students build the psychological guard.3. The undergraduates’ coping strategies differ among majors and grades. And the interaction of majors and grades categories can remarkably predict undergraduates’ coping strategies to infectious diseases.4. The impact of infectious diseases on undergraduates’ psychological effects differs in genders. Female were more reactive than male, especially in the variables of negative emotions and avoidance behaviours. However, there was no significant difference in the coping strategies between female and male. Thus, we should pay more attention to the females’ psychology and help them to improve their reaction and strategies to the infectious diseases.5. There are no significant differences in the impact of infectious diseases between the undergraduates of liberal arts versus science, while coping strategies between them present significant differences. In general, liberal arts students are more inclined to adopt the positive coping strategies, especially inclined to actively solve the problems.6. The psychological effects on undergraduates differ in grades. Grade 3 is mostly influenced but grade 1 is least. Grade differences also exist in the aspects of negative emotions and avoidance behaviours, and this effect is increased in parallel with the grades. The coping strategies of each grade students differ significantly, which is characterized by a trend of decline when the grade is increasing. Differences in actively solving the problems also exist among distinct grades: as compared with the freshman(grade 1) and junior students(grade 3), grade 2 students is the most active in solving the problems, however, the most passive ones are the students of junior grade(grade 3).7. Undergraduates from different places showed obvious variations in the psychological reaction in front of the infectious diseases. And this variation in particularly exists in negative emotions: the students from rural area most likely present negative and pessimistic effects, while the influences on urban students are minimal. As to the coping strategies, students from big city tend to adopt more active coping strategy than the students from either small-medium sized city or rural, and the differences are significant. On the action to solve the problems, students from different places are different, students from big city tend to adopt more active action to solve the problems than students from either small-medium sized city or rural.In a word, we should make full use of the educational resources and health facilities to effectively control the psychological reactions of the infectious diseases on undergraduates, in particular to reduce the negative impacts, recover the psychological health timely and promote the comprehensive qualities of their physical and mental development.