Religious commitment and self-efficacy in predicting the amount and type of perceived stress in university students

Development of human societies sometimes leads in negative consequences such as stress. This research was conducted to assess the effects of religious commitment and self-efficacy in predicting the amount and type of perceived stress in university students.

Methods and Materials:

 This was a correlational-descriptive study including 200 undergraduate and postgraduate students at East Azerbaijan Payam-e-Noor University during 2009-2010 academic year. The subjects have been selected by multiple-stage cluster sampling. Data was collected through researchermade questionnaire, Nilsson religious commitment questionnaire, the perceived stress questionnaire by Kohen et al., and Sherz general self-efficacy questionnaire. The data was analyzed using Pearson correlation test and multiple regression test in SPSS.

The findings showed religious commitment to have a negative relation with the amount of negative stress, and significant positive relations with self-efficacy and the amount of positive stress. On the other hand, self-efficacy had a negative relation with the amount of negative stress, and a significant positive relation with the amount of positive stress. Standard multiple regression showed self-efficacy and religious commitment to be valid variables for predicting positive and negative stress in students.

According to the results of this study, students can reduce the amount of negative stress and therefore improve their mental health by increasing their religious commitment, such as praying andreading Quran.