Present-day features of maladjustment states in English medium students

Abstract

Background. During studying, international students require integration into a new linguistic and socio-cultural environment, an unusual climate, large volumes of rather complex new information, new forms and methods of educational process organization, emerging problems outside the educational process, separation from relatives and friends, all this inevitably causes students have new emotional experiences and mental states. The aim of the research was to study the modern features of the states of psychological maladjustment of international medical English medium (EM) students. Materials & Methods. 372 international year 1-6 EM students of Kharkiv National Medical University (223 men and 149 women) with an average age of (19±3) years were examined. All the examinees were divided into three groups: Group 1 – 194 students from India; Group 2 – 96 students from other Asian countries (Pakistan, Lebanon, and Syria); Group 3 – 82 students from African countries (Sudan, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Namibia, and Israel). Results & Conclusions. The conducted psychodiagnostic study showed that students with a high and moderate level of maladjustment have clinical manifestations of anxiety according to Hamilton Anxiety and Depression Rating Scales (29.8% of students of Group 1, 30.1% of Group 2, 29.9% of Group 3) and subclinical manifestations of anxiety (36.2%; 39.5% and 41.1% of students, respectively). Clinical manifestations of depression were typical for 12.4% of students of Group 1, 14.2% of students of Group 2, and 13.4% of students of Group 3; subclinical manifestations of depression – for 21.1%, 19.6% and 19.9%, respectively. The analysis of the expressiveness of the manifestations of hypotensive states allowed distinguishing asthenodepressive (23.1% of the examined Group 1, 15.8% of Group 2 and 25.6% of Group 3), hypersthenic (29.9%; 29.8% and 22.2% of the examinees, respectively), anxious (25.5% of the students of Group 1, 18.9% – of Group 2, 31.1% – of Group 3) and dysphoric (21.5%; 35.5% and 21.1%, respectively) syndromes. Keywords: maladaptation, international students of higher education, anxiety, depression.