Acculturative stress level and its contributing factors among international postgraduate students at Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang

Introduction: Acculturative stress among international students is a serious issue. Oversea students face several problems because of the linguistic and cultural differences in their host country. It is important to understand their acculturative stress level and its contributing factors, in order to develop plans and policies and attract international students as well as ease their stay at UPM. Methodology: A cross sectional study was conducted among the international post-graduate students using multistage random sampling proportionate to size from six faculties. Data was collected using a pretested, self-administered questionnaire which consists of three sections i.e., socio-demographic factors, adapted acculturative stressors scale and perceived stress scale. Data was analyzed using IBM Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 22.0. Descriptive analysis was used to determine the factors contributed to acculturative stress and predictors were explored using hierarchical regressions analysis. Ρ value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Result: A total of 404 respondents were assessed in this study, with the response rate of 82.1%. The obtained data showed that the prevalence of moderate acculturative stress was 77.7%, with 5.2% high stress. Mean age of the respondents was 32 years (M=32, SD=6.9), whereas the majority of respondents (75.7%) were male students. Respondents were mainly from Middle East (42.3%) and Africa (37.1%). Hierarchical regression analysis found that the gender (p<0.05), religion (p<0.05), continent of origin (p<0.05), duration of stay (p<0.001), academic pressure (p<0.001), financial concern (p<0.001), and social support (p<0.05) were significant predictors. Conclusion: The findings of the study reveal that over four fifths of international post-graduate students in UPM were in moderate to high acculturative stress level. The top three significant predictors of acculturative stress among international postgraduate students were academic pressure, financial concern and social support.

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