Psychological Symptoms and Stress Coping Styles in College Students with Somatization

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify stress coping styles and psychological symptoms and to examine the influences of stress coping styles and psychological symptoms on somatization in college students. A sample of 98 college students who included in the somatic group was compared with 76 college students who included in the normal healthy group. The SCL-90-R and Ways of Coping Checklist were used. Data was analyzed by independent t-test, Pearson correlation coefficient and multiple regression analysis using PASW 18.0. All the scores of psychological symptoms except obsession-compulsion and psychoticism in somatic students were significantly higher, whereas the scores of problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping were significantly lower than normal controls. In the somatic group, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, and emotion focused coping had positive correlations with somatization. And these 4 variables except hostility accounted for 47.2% of variance in somatization. The findings show that the college students with somatization have various psychological problems and insufficient stress coping. These results suggest that mental health providers need to be aware of the depression, anxiety, phobic anxiety and the tendency to emotion focused coping in college students with somatization, as these factors influence their somatic symptoms. (Korean J Str Res 2014;22:149∼158)