Background. College students who are at the emerging adulthood developmental stage have higher risk of psychological distress compared to other populations due to some major life events, such as transition from adolescence to adulthood and transition from high school to university. These events make college students are prone to psychological distress and negative emotions, such as loneliness, isolation, and identity loss. Nevertheless, not all college students have high level of psychological distress. It happens because psychological distress is a complex phenomenon caused by numerous factors. Several studies showed that parents’ marital status may affect one’s mental health condition. Moreover, absence of one or more parent may contribute to adult insecure attachment, psychosocial impairments, and psychopathology. Therefore, it is important to conduct a study that explain the association between parents’ marital status and psychological distress in college student population.

Methods. This study used quantitative non-experimental design. There were 1024 college students aged 18-25 years old participated in this study. The Bahasa Indonesia version of Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25 (HSCL-25) was used to measure psychological distress. HSCL-25 consisted of 25 items measured two aspects of psychological distress, that were anxiety (10 items) and depression (15 items). Responses in HSCL-25 used 4-point Likert scale. Next, we did test try out to ensure the reliability and discrimination index of HSCL-25. Thereafter, we collected research data through paper-based and online questionnaires. After collecting data, we analyzed them by using descriptive statistics and one-way ANOVA.

Results. Descriptive statistics analysis showed that 688 participants (67,20%) had high psychological distress and 336 participants (32.80%) had low psychological distress. Meanwhile, one-way ANOVA analysis proved that there was significant difference of psychological distress between participants raised by married, divorced, and widowed parents (F= 5.285, p < 0.01). Participants raised by divorced parents had higher psychological distress compared to participants raised by married parents (t=0.173, p<0.05). Participants raised by widowed parents also had higher psychological distress compared to participants raised by married parents (t=0.15362, p<0.05). However, there were no significant difference of psychological distress between participants raised by divorced and widowed parents (t=0.1914, p>0.05). We also did further analyses to find out the association between parents’ marital status and two aspects of psychological distress. These analyses showed that participants raised by widowed parents had higher anxiety than participants raised by married parents (t=1.954, p<0.01). Meanwhile, participants raised by divorced parents showed higher level of depression that participants raised by married parents (t=3.780, p<0.01). To generated more comprehensive data, we tried to find the interaction between gender, parents’ marital status, and two aspects of psychological distress. These analyses showed that female participants raised by widowed parents had higher anxiety compared to female participants raised by married parents (t=1.950, p<0.05). On the other hand, male participants raised by widowed parents had higher depression than male participants raised by married parents (t=4.459, p<0.05). Female participants raised by divorced parents had higher depression compared to female participants raised by married parents (t=5.612, p<0.01). It also proved that female participants raised by divorced parents had higher depression than female participants raised by widowed parents (t=4.535, p<0.05).

Conclusions. The result of descriptive statistics proved that most of the participants had high psychological distress. Participants raised by married parents tend to have lower psychological distress than participants raised by widowed or divorced parents. The analysis of each aspect showed that participants raised by widowed parents had higher anxiety than participants raised by married parents. Meantime, participants raised by divorced parents had higher depression compared to participants raised by married parents. This analysis also indicated the interactions between gender, parent’s marital status, and psychological distress.

Added-Values. Heretofore, there is no study which try to find the association between parents’ marital status and psychological distress in college students population. In consequence, conducting a study about this issue is important to determine whether parents’ marital status is a vulnerability factor to psychological distress among college students.

Contribution to the Society. Results obtained from this study may be a reference for academic counselor to enforce a prevention program to college students who may suffer from high psychological distress, especially for college students who raised in divorced or widowed families.

Keywords: anxiety; college student; depression; parents’ marital status; psychological distress

Word count: 700 words

Preference of presentation: Oral presentation