Sense of coherence and hardiness as predictors of mental health in college students

Antonovsky's sense of coherence (SOC) and Kobasa's hardiness are constructs that have been suggested for positive mental health. A few studies have examined these with college students with negative outcomes. One study looked at the relationship of hardiness and SOC on perceived stress and psychological symptoms and found significant negative correlations. Another study in college students found SOC to explain significant amounts of variance in hope and depressive symptoms. In another study with Chinese American college students SOC was found to mediate the effects of parental and peer attachment on depressive symptoms. In another study with bereaved college students hardiness was found to be inversely related to grief symptoms. None of the studies have looked at these constructs with mental health as the dependent variable. So the purpose of this study was to look at the predictive potential of SOC and hardiness on mental health of college students. Mental health was measured by Kessler Psychological Distress Scale K-6. Sense of coherence was measured by SOC-13 and hardiness was measured by College Student Hardiness Measure [CSHM]. All of these scales have acceptable psychometric properties. In arriving at the sample size, an alpha of 0.05, a power of 0.80, and a population correlation coefficient of 0.20 were considered which yielded a sample size of 197. A paper and pencil survey was conducted after obtaining IRB permission. The results supported that sense of coherence and hardiness are useful predictors of mental health. Ways to build these constructs through educational interventions have been discussed.