Life events, depression and supportive relationships affect academic achievement in university students

Abstract

Background

Students often simultaneously deal with shifting support networks, stressful life changes and psychological distress which may affect academic achievement. Methods: 285 students completed the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) to assess depression and the Computerized Life Events Assessment Record (CLEAR), to establish life events and supportive relationships. Module grades were used to measure academic achievement. A general linear model was used with student grade as the dependent variable and life events, depression and supportive relationships as independent variables. Confounding variables included age and sex. Results: A three-way interaction between life events, depression and lack of supportive relationships was found. It indicated the performance of depressed students depended on whether they had supportive relationships and that this interaction also depended on whether they had experienced a life event in the past year. Conclusions: Universities need to provide more support to students with life stress as they transition into university life.

Keywords:

• Academic achievement
• depression
• life events
• students
• supportive relationships

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 Great Britain and received approval from the Psychology Department Ethics Committee at Middlesex University.

Additional information

Funding

This project was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC; grant number ES/K00638X/1). H.L.F. was supported by an MQ: Transforming Mental Health Fellows award (MQ14F40). The funding source had no involvement in study design, collection, analysis and interpretation of data, writing the report or the decision to submit this article for publication.