Stress and Coping Among Adolescents in Selected Schools in the Capital City of India

Objective: To find out various life stressors of adolescents, coping strategies adopted by them and the impact of stress on adolescent mental health.

Methods: A descriptive, cross sectional study was conducted in the schools in south zone of Delhi, capital city of the country. Data was collected on 360 adolescents between the age group of 13-17 y on socio-demographic profile, Adolescent Life Event Stress Scale, Brief Cope and Youth Self Report for ages 11-18 y.

Results: Stress related to uncontrollable events such as family events, relocation events, accident events, ambiguous events and controllable events such as sexual events, deviance events and autonomy events was significantly higher as compared to distressful events (p < 0.0) such as death of a pet, arguments with friends, appearing for exams, failure or low grades. Adolescent stress was significantly correlated with various demographic variables in the study. The most frequently used coping strategies by the adolescents were positive reframing, planning, active coping, and instrumental support. It has also been found that stress has a significant impact on adolescent mental health in the form of either internalizing problems such as anxiety, withdrawal and somatic problems or externalizing problems such as rule breaking and aggressive behaviors.

Conclusions: A significant correlation was found between most of the stressful life event domains and the syndrome subscale of the youth self report form which indicate that out of the total sample of 360 adolescents 150 were identified as having psycho-social morbidity, including 59 borderline cases and 91 high-risk cases. The study pointed out the need for mental health screening among the adolescents and also indicated the need for mental health inputs in educational institutions.