Self-rated mental and physical health are prospectively associated with psychosocial and academic adjustment to college

Abstract

Objective: To examine prospective associations between physical and mental self-rated health (SRH), college generation status and college adjustment among first-year college students. Participants and methods: Eighty-seven first-year college students (41 first-generation college students) reported their SRH when starting college, and then, reported on psychosocial and academic adjustment and health behaviors midway through each semester. Results: Better physical and mental SRH were associated with better psychosocial adjustment in both semesters and academic adjustment in the fall but were generally not predictive of health behaviors. Specifically, better physical SRH was associated with less loneliness (fall: B = −.192, p = .048; spring: B = −.233, p = .008) and fewer anxiety symptoms in both semesters (fall: B = −.236, p = .011; spring: B = −.210, p = .014) and fewer depressive symptoms (fall: B = −.134, p = .016) and more fall semester credits (B = .965, p = .002). Better mental SRH was associated with greater sense of belonging (fall: B = .317, p < .001; spring: B = .242, p = .009), less loneliness (fall: −.210, p = .008; spring: B = −.181, p = .012), and fewer anxiety symptoms (fall: −.193, p = .011; spring: −.195, p = .006) in both semesters and higher fall semester grade point average (B = .129, p = .032). Independent effects of physical and mental SRH are also discussed. Largely, college generation status did not matter for college adjustment within this sample. Conclusions: Physical and mental SRH when starting college may be important indicators of psychosocial adjustment over the first year and academic adjustment in the fall.

Keywords:

• First-generation college students
• health behaviors
• loneliness
• self-rated health
• sense of belonging

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States and received approval from The Pennsylvania State University’s Institutional Review Board..

Additional information

Funding

Research reported in this manuscript was supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under award number F31HL149179 (PI: EJJ). The content of the manuscript is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.