Psychological Stress and its Associated Factors among In-school Adolescents in Ibadan, Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated psychological stress and its associated factors among in-school adolescents in Ibadan, Nigeria. This was a descriptive cross-sectional study that employed a multi-stage sampling to select and assess 400 students from ten secondary schools in Ibadan on their socio-demographic profile, knowledge, prevalence, coping mechanisms and associated factors of psychological stress. Brief-COPE and General Health questionnaires were adopted to assess the prevalence and coping mechanisms of psychological stress among the respondents. Findings revealed that more than half of the respondents (55.8%) had poor knowledge of psychological stress and only a few (6%) had a high level of being psychologically stressed among the in-school adolescents. The most common coping mechanism observed among the respondents was avoidance coping mechanism, specifically “going to the movies” (49.1%); and the factors significantly associated with the prevalence of psychological stress were school, family, physical factors, peer-pressure as well as romantic factors. Binary logistic regression analysis results showed that “Not supported by parents financially (OR: 2.681, 95% CI 1.0-7.1) and finding it difficult to keep up with school work (OR: 0.202, 95% CI 0.04-0.8)” was positively associated with the prevalence of psychological stress among in-school adolescents. The poor knowledge and prevalence of psychological stress observed among the in-school adolescents suggest constant sensitisations among students, parents, teachers and school counsellors