The impact of mental health, affectivity, emotional intelligence, empathy and coping skills in Occupational Therapy students

Abstract

Background: Students attending university have to adjust to a new learning context and are under psychological distress. The aim of the study was to assess the mental health, affective status, emotions, emotional intelligence, empathy and coping skills of undergraduate students of occupational therapy. Methods: A sample of 130 first-to-fourth-year students enrolled in an occupational therapy degree course, to whom we administered an “ad hoc” questionnaire, the Symptom CheckList-90-Revised (SCL-90-R), the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), the Trait Meta-Mood Scale (TMMS-24), the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) and Brief COPE questionnaire. Results: We found low scores in psychological disorders, positive affect (general and over the last week), presence of pleasant emotions, good emotional intelligence, high scores in empathy and a good coping style and adaptive strategies. However, we found a high level of students without emotion regulation skills. Additionally, our results show interesting relationships between gender, year group, chronic illness and doing sport, where female undergraduates, third-year students and those with a chronic illness had worse mental health and psychological distress. Conclusion: Preventive measures are needed in higher education to minimize mental health and maladaptive emotions and to achieve the highest possible level of psycho-emotional well-being.