Financial Stress, Social Supports, Gender, and Anxiety During College: A Stress-Buffering Perspective
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Connects with: @archuleta2013 @heckman2014 @kahn2006
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tran2018 - p. 847
Financial stressors for many college students are diverse and can include typical living expenses, tuition and cademic expenses, overspending or credit card debt, student loan debt, workschool–life balance, financial pressures from family, and uncertain employment after graduation
tran2018 - p. 848
The emergence of financial concerns as a major, widespread source of stress for young adults comes at a time when general anxiety and stress have reached peak levels among college students (American College Health Association [ACHA], 2017; Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors, 2016; CCMH, 2016).
tran2018 - p. 848
In a multisite investigation, 78% of college students who attempted suicide cited financial stress as a reason
tran2018 - p. 849
From a stress–coping perspective, more social supports—including family supportmay have a stress-buffering role in the relation between financial stress and general anxiety among college students.
tran2018 - p. 849
Comparatively, then, females who persist in college may be doing so with heavy psychological and financial burdens. Thus, gender appears to be an important factor in conceptualizing the health impact of financial stress, but extant research has yielded mixed findings on the nature of gender effects, suggesting a need for further investigation.
tran2018 - p. 851
In the current study, we aimed to understand financial stress and its relevance to mental health, specifically general anxiety, for male and female college students. The study examined moderated moderation models in which perceived family support and general social support are each considered for their potential stress-buffering effects, and the possibility of variations in these effects is considered for males and females.
tran2018 - p. 852
The sample was comprised of 304 college students drawn from a larger online study. The larger study, the Financial and Social Stress Study, was comprised of a single primary data collection focusing on adult financial and social experiences; this study is the first manuscript from the larger research project (Tran & Mintert, n.d.).
tran2018 - p. 853
The seven-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder scale (GAD7; Spitzer, Kroenke, Williams, & Lowe, 2006) is among the most widely used measures of frequency of general anxiety symptoms (e.g., “Over the last 2 weeks, how often have you been bothered by the following problems?”… “Feeling nervous, anxious or on edge;” “Becoming easily annoyed or irritable”). Response options were given on a 4-point frequency scale (1 = not at all, 4 = nearly every day). Higher mean scores indicate greater anxiety.
tran2018 - p. 853
The seven-item Financial Anxiety Scale (Archuleta, Dale, & Spann, 2013) was developed largely based on items from the GAD-7 adapted to be specific to financial stress (e.g., “I feel anxious about my financial situation” or “I feel fatigued because I worry about my financial situation.”). Responses indicated frequency on a 7-point scale (1 = never, 7 = always), with higher mean scores indicating greater financial stress.
tran2018 - p. 854
Perceived family support. The 13-item Kinship Social Support scale (Taylor, Casten, & Flickinger, 1993) was used to measure perceived social and emotional support from family and/or relatives. Sample items included “I can count on my family/relatives to help when I have problems” and “One of the good things in life for me is to talk and have fun with my family/relatives.” Responses are reported on a 4-point Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree, 4 = strongly agree).
tran2018 - p. 854
General social support. In a study of social capital and college students, Ellison, Steinfield, and Lampe (2007) utilized a five-item measure of “bonding social capital” that indexed students’ social support in their local context (i.e., Michigan State University). Adaptations to the five items were made for use in the present study that centered on making the items generalizable to a national context, making them less about social capital (i.e., the resources derived from social networks within a given community) and more about individual perceptions of social support (see Uphoff, Pickett, Cabieses, Small, & Wright, 2013 for a discussion).
tran2018 - p. 855
An a priori statistical power analysis with a medium effect size (α = .05; power = 0.80; Cohen, 1988) was performed for sample size estimation via G*Power version 3.1. The projected sample size needed with eight predictor variables was approximately N = 109, suggesting the final sample size of 304 was adequate.