NWT RESEARCH DATABASE

Regions: Inuvialuit Settlement Region, Gwich'in Settlement Area, North Slave Region, South Slave Region

Tags: social sciences, mental health, post-secondary student, stressors

Objective(s): To conduct a cross-Canada, multi-site release of the Post-Secondary Student Stressors Index.

Project Description: This licence has been issued for the scientific research application No.4799. The purpose of the current project is to conduct a cross-Canada, multi-site release of the Post-Secondary Student Stressors Index (PSSI). This study will take the form of a longitudinal, cross-Canada, multi-site release of the PSSI. This will allow us to further evaluate the tool in a larger sample with broad regional representation. Results from this study will provide a broad overall picture of the patterns in student stressors in different regions of Canada (i.e., Western vs. Central vs. Atlantic Canada) and may inform future research regarding stress among post-secondary students, as well as the targeting of upstream mental health services. Applying a longitudinal study design with three data collection time points will also allow the team to examine how stressors change over the course of an academic year. This study is a cross-Canada, multi-site study. Sixteen co-investigators have been engaged at partnering post-secondary institutions across Canada in order to ensure regional representation in the overall sample of students surveyed through this project. The study will be longitudinal in nature, with three major data collection timepoints: T1 in October 2020; T2 in January 2021; and T3 in March 2021. Multiple data timepoints will allow the research team to observe changes in stressors over the course of the 2020-2021 school year. The timing of these surveys has been intentionally selected to avoid particularly stressful periods for students (i.e., the very start or end of term, exams) to maximize participation and reduce burden on students. Analysis of the data, to be completed by the Principal Investigator (PI) will be done during the Spring/Summer semester of 2021. Data will be collected via online survey through the Queen’s University Qualtrics platform. All collected data will be anonymized through the use of a unique identifier, which will be created at the start of each survey. The use of unique IDs will allow the team to link individual respondents’ responses at each timepoint while still maintaining anonymity in responses. The use of anonymous data eliminates concerns associated with data privacy and confidentiality. The survey includes the following components: three questions designed to help the participant create their unique identifier; the 46-item PSSI; the 10-item Perceived Stress Scale PSS-10); the 10-item Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10) plus two questions about previous mental illness diagnoses; the 10-item Connor-Davidson Resiliency Scale (CD-RISC-10), and a number of demographic questions. Recruitment of participants will be conducted in one of two ways, at the discretion of the partner institutions: 1) the Office of Institutional Research & Planning (or equivalent) will provide the project PI with a sample of student e-mails (note that sample size is left at the discretion of the institution, though bigger is always better for representation purposes), and the PI will then send the survey link to these student e-mails via the REB-approved recruitment e-mail; or 2) the institution will send the survey link along with the REB-approved recruitment e-mail to their own students via their listserv. Note that option #2 is common at institutions where they prefer not to share student information (including e-mails) with outside investigators. The same sample (or listserv) will be sent the survey at each of the three timepoints. There are currently no plans to communicate the results of the study directly to student participants (this is not possible due to the anonymous nature of the data). However, results from the study will be published in an open-access academic journal for everyone to view. Results may also be presented at academic conferences (i.e. oral or poster presentations). As is required, a summary of the research results will be provided to the Aurora Research Institute at the close of the study. The fieldwork for this study will be conducted from October 20, 2020 to December 31, 2020.