Mental distress and its relationship to distance education students’ work and family roles

ABSTRACT

To date, research concerning the work-family-study interface remains limited and has focused on younger students enrolled in campus-based courses. In this study, we used self-reported data from 318 distance education final-year undergraduates to examine, first of all, the associations between students’ levels of mental distress with their work and family roles. Secondly, we examined the associations between students’ levels of mental distress with their perceived levels of role conflict and role facilitation. We considered conflict and facilitation both in the direction from work to studying and from family to studying. We used multinomial regression to explore relationships, controlling for age, sex, ethnicity, and educational attainment at registration. Our study revealed unpaid caring responsibilities, reported work-study conflict, and family-study conflict were associated with an increased risk of reporting higher levels of mental distress, and work-study facilitation and family-study facilitation were associated with a lower risk of reporting higher levels of mental distress.

KEYWORDS:

• mental distress
• distance education
• work
• family
• students
• higher education

Acknowledgments

This research was funded by PRAXIS, The Open University’s Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies Scholarship and Innovation Centre. The authors would like to thank their colleagues and the research participants in The Open University’s Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies for their support in conducting this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. The authors were not the modules chairs for any of the modules sampled for this research.

Data

The data that support this study are available upon request from Dr. Philippa Waterhouse ([email protected]).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Philippa Waterhouse

Philippa Waterhouse is a lecturer in health at The Open University, UK. Her research interests include exploring the interface between work and family roles and their consequences in relation to health.

Rajvinder Samra

Rajvinder Samra is a lecturer in health at The Open University, UK. Her research interests include investigating and improving the mental well-being of individuals in educational and professional environments.

Mathijs Lucassen

Mathijs Lucassen is a senior lecturer in mental health at The Open University, UK. His research interests include exploring child and youth mental health and supporting free and open learning via online platforms