Work

Factors Influencing the Mental Health of First-Year College Students: Evidence from Digital Records of Daily Behaviors

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: The mental health of college students, particularly first-year students, deserves significant attention. As they transition from high school to college, they experience substantial changes not only in their learning behaviors but also in their daily behaviors, which may pose mental health challenges. However, existing studies exploring the factors influencing college students' mental health still have limitations in the selection of predictor variables and behavior assessment. Building on this, our study adopted a cross-sectional design involving 110 first-year college students in China (M = 17.94 years; 47 males, 63 females) and analyzed the impact of daily behaviors on mental health. We collected daily behavioral data through a designed mini program, and assessed mental health using the GHQ-28. LASSO regression was applied to identify key behavioral predictors, and semi-structured interviews were conducted to further explore the impact of these factors. The results show that sleep quality, planned and implemented physical exercise, average self-evaluation scores, average daily number of planned tasks, and the completion rate of planned tasks have a positive impact on mental health. These findings contribute to enhancing the theoretical understanding of how daily behaviors shape college students' mental health and offer practical guidance for universities to carry out mental health education.

Source: Behavioral Sciences

DOI: 10.3390/bs15050618

Authors: Jingyi Ou, Kunyu Wang, Mingzhang Zuo, Di Chen, Heng Luo

Institution: Central China Normal University

Language: English

Topic: Student Stress and Coping

Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $2,654