Mental health of Indonesian university students: U.K. comparison and relationship between mental health shame and self-compassion.

Abstract

While the Indonesian higher education has been growing rapidly, poor student mental health including a high level of mental health shame is a cause for concern in Indonesia. This study aimed to evaluate their mental health, shame, and self-compassion. One hundred fifty six participants completed self-report measures regarding mental health problems (depression, anxiety, and stress), mental health shame (negative attitudes, and external, internal, and reflected shame), and self-compassion. Data were first compared with 145 U.K. students, then correlation and regression analyses were performed. Indonesian students showed higher levels of mental health problems, family-related mental health shame, and self-compassion than U.K. students. Each type of mental health problem and mental health shame were positively associated with each other. Self-compassion was negatively associated with mental health problems, but not with mental health shame. Self-compassion was consistently the strongest predictor of mental health problems. Among the mental health shame types, only family external shame predicted the level of depression. Self-compassion training and mental health education for their family are recommended to protect the mental health of university students in Indonesia.

Self-Compassion during COVID-19 in Non-WEIRD Countries: A Narrative Review

“…Indeed, self-compassion is highly influenced by Buddhism, which originated in non-WEIRD countries. However, self-compassion's relevance to mental health has been observed across WEIRD and non-WEIRD countries [83][84][85][86][87]. These findings propose the mechanism of how self-compassion improves the understanding of mental health needs because how mental health and psychological trauma associated with COVID-19 are regarded can differ cross-culturally [30,88].…”

Comparing the Mental Health of Healthcare Students: Mental Health Shame and Self-compassion in Counselling, Occupational Therapy, Nursing and Social Work Students

“…Self-compassion helps healthcare students with mental illnesses by increasing resilience and reducing self-criticism and shame (Kotera et al, 2021a(Kotera et al, , 2021b. Studies report that students who are self-compassionate tend to have a low degree of mental health shame (Kotera et al, 2022a;Kotera et al, 2022b). Moreover, self-compassion is associated with a natural desire to learn (Neff et al, 2007) and positive mental health outcomes such as reduced stress, depression, anxiety and higher life satisfaction (López et al, 2018).…”