Assessment Of Stress And Coping Strategies Among Undergraduate Students At The University Of Dodoma, Tanzania

ABSTRACT

The study assesses the stresses and coping strategies among undergraduate students

of the University of Dodoma. The study employed a random sampling procedure to

get 100 respondents, who are the University of Dodoma undergraduate students.

Data collected were analyzed by using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS)

version 16 for Quantitative Data and content analysis for Qualitative data. The study

employed cross-sectional survey design. Methods that were used for collecting data

were documentary review, interview and questionnaires. The findings have revealed

that delay to get loans from HESLB, releasing course work marks, and starting

lecture when semesters begin, lectures at the week of UE preparation, non provision

of loans to some students, lack of proper transport services around university

campus, limited spacing between one test to another, long lectures without or with

little rest" are the higher ranked stressors at the University of Dodoma.

The findings of this study also have revealed that poor study performance, health

problems such as headaches, difficulty in concentration and easy forget during

studying, frustration, insomnia, oversleep to some students are the major effects of

stress for UDOM students. On the other hand the findings of the study showed that,

students cope with stress through prayers, social support from fellow students and

relatives, positive appraisal, study discussion and rituals like stories, jokes and

watching movies, where there is statistical significance between male and female

students on watching movies, at correlation Person Chi square p< 0.02.

The study concludes that students have little knowledge on stress and useful coping

methods. The implication of this study to existing policy is that stressors for

university students are not limited to academic issues but also from personal, social,

political and economic sphere. This means that dealing with tress should not only be

limited to student themselves but also the surrounding environment in particular.