Study Of The Relationship Of Psychological Stress And Mental Health Of The Shanghai Middle School

Purpose:(1)To recognize the present situation of psychological stress and mental health of middle school students in Shanghai, to provide some reference for instructors.(2)To analyse the subjective and objective factors that influence the middle school students' mental health, and to explore the effects of coping styles and social support on the relationship between psychological stress and mental health so as to provide theorectical foundation and practical guide to alleviate students' psychological stress and to improve their mental health. (3 )To give some correspondent advice for instructors to improve students' mental health basing on this reseach.Method: Questionnaires were used to examine 852 middle school students from Grade One to Grade Six in Shanghai. Instruments employed included the Stressor Scale of Middle School Student, Coping Styles Scale of Middle School Student, Perceived Social Support Scale, and Scl-90. Regression and general linear model (univariate) were used to test the main effects and interaction of coping styles, social support on the mental health. Six typical students were interviewed and a case of counseling was analysed thoroughly.Conclusion: (l)Life Stress from study, teachers and themselves are three main stress causes. Female students reported more stress than that of male students.(2)The middle students in Shanghai where have more students with psychological problems or deseases ,have poorer mental health than that of national average level.Girls' mental health is poorer than that of boys, espically having significant higher score in the scales of depression, anxiety, and panic. The students of Grade Six have the poorest mental health of all the middle school students. (3)Negtive coping styles, which have significant positive correlations with high stress and poor mental health,have much influence on students' mental health and can be a good predictive index of mental health. Positive coping styles don't show significant correlation with mental health. Female students score higher than that of male students both in positive and negtive coping styles scales. (4)Social support shows both main and buffering effects on mental health. Girls perceived more social support than that of boys. ( 5 ) Psychological stress is significant correlated with menta health. Coping styles have no significant interaction with support. They play a independent role in the relationship between psychological stress and menta health.Some advice to alleviate middle school students' psychological stress and to improve their mental health: (l)Deepen the educational reform to alleviate the overload psychological stress.(2)Improve greatly the teachers' proffessional level to reduce students' psychological problems caused by teachers.(3)Strengthen the psychological education to increase the conscious of mental health and improve students' abilities to help themselves to solve the psychological prombles.(4)Put "the theory of intervention from three levels" into practice to complete the system of psychological help for middle school students.