Stress Appraisal, Resilience, and Psychological Distress in College and University Students

The study aimed to investigate the relationship between stress appraisal (i.e. threat, challenge, centrality, controllability by self, controllability by others, uncontrollable, and stressfulness), resilience (interstate resilience, intra state resilience, inter-trait resilience, and intra-trait resilience) and psychological distress (subscales of psychological distress: intrusion, avoidance, and arousal) in College and University students. Students (N = 400) with age range of 19 to 22 years (M = 20.01, SD = 1.05) were recruited from different colleges and universities in Lahore. The research protocol consisted of the Stress Appraisal Measure, The State-Trait Resilience Checklist, and the Impact of Event Scale-Revised. The findings revealed that threat, challenge, centrality, controllability by self, controllability by others, uncontrollable, and stressfulness (subscales of stress appraisal) had a significant positive relationship with psychological distress, intrusion, avoidance, and arousal (subscales of psychological distress). The findings also indicated a negative relationship between resilience and psychological distress. Moreover, the results showed that threat, centrality, and inter-trait resilience are significant positive predictors of psychological distress while intra-state resilience is a negative predictor of psychological distress. Limitations and recommendations are discussed.