The Comparative Study of Different Levels and Kinds of Stress and the Relative Strategies in Shahed and non- Shahed University Students

The present article aimed at the study of stressful events and the relative coping strategies, comparatively in shahed and non- shahed university students. Thus, 530 samples were studied in different fields of study proportionate to the mass of subgroups. 354 samples were non- shahed, whereas 166 were shahed students (10 students didn’t specify their situation). The instruments used for this research were the stress- assessment questionnaire (including 90 questions) and the coping strategies questionnaire (consisting of 72 questions). The results indicated that in most cases the stress was related to excessive preoccupation, the students’ concerns about selecting a job appropriate to their field of study, the change in sleeping habits… . However, the least stressful situation was due to desired pregnancy, remarriage, the child’s birth and temporary apprehension. The coping strategies mostly used were trust in God and seeking his help, profound and careful thinking about the measures that could have been taken to solve the problem, striving hard to remove the barriers. On the other hand, coping strategies such as using drugs, or tranquillizers, smoking and resorting to fortunetellers (or soothsayers) and the writers of amulets and prayers were rarely used. The comparison of shahed and non- shahed students showed their stressful factors greatly differed from each other, but no significant difference was observed between these two groups considering the coping strategies, except for the rejection strategy which was used more by the shahed students than non- shahed ones.