Homesickness experience, distress and sleep quality of first-year university students dealing with academic environment

Abstract

The literature shows that homesickness can have a negative impact on different areas of psychological functioning such as cognitive, emotional, behavioral, physical and social ones. The study, conducted on a sample of first-year university students, aimed to test a model hypothesizing that two distinct dimensions of homesickness, attachment to home and disliking university, could have both direct and indirect effects on their psychological distress and sleep difficulties. Two hundred and seventy-seven first-year students (70.4% Female) living away from home (mean age= 21.3, SD= 2.7) were included in the study and filled out questionnaires assessing homesickness, psychological distress and sleep difficulties. Structural Equation Model (SEM) analysis confirmed that the two homesickness dimensions worked differently since only the one relating to new place adjustment difficulties (i.e. disliking the university) resulted having both direct and indirect effects on students' sleep difficulties. Although female students reported higher levels of psychological distress compared to males, the multi-group SEM analysis showed that the pattern of multivariate relationships linking the two dimensions of homesickness, psychological distress and sleep difficulties, was invariant across gender. The results of the present study suggest that university counselling and guidance services should quickly screen students experiencing homesickness and offer effective counselling programs focusing on enhancing their capacities to deal with the new academic environment.