The Roles of Psychosocial Developmental Crisis and Self-Stigma in Mental Health among College Students with Disabilities

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this research is to investigate the current situation of and the relationship between self-stigma, psychosocial crisis and mental health among college students with disabilities. This study was cross-sectional and quantitative in design. Four hundred and two college students with disabilities participated and psychometric tools were used to measure relevant perspectives regarding self-stigma, psychosocial development crisis and mental health, including the Self-Stigma short version, the Measures of Psychosocial Development and the Chinese Health Questionnaire 12. Results show that 40.3% of college students with disabilities are in need of primary mental health intervention and that 5% of them reach a level where psychiatric treatment can be deemed necessary. Moreover, after having controlled the potential confounders, the regression models show the frequency of using the school-support unit, peer support, self-stigma are predictors of mental health. The Erikson’s psychosocial crisis (including trust versus mistrust, autonomy versus shame and doubt, initiative versus guilt, as well as generativity versus stagnation) has also proven to be significant factors for the mental health among the respective college students. The findings of this study can suggest ways to help college students with disabilities in better adapting to social life on campus.

KEYWORDS:

• College students with disabilities
• developmental crisis
• educational psychology
• Erikson
• mental health
• psychosocial development
• school adjustment
• stigma

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Science of Technology of Republic of China (Taiwan) [MOST 104-2410-H-143-008].