Psychological well being among undergraduate students: a cross sectional study

Psychological well-being is about lives going well because the combination of feeling good and functioning. Individual with high psychological well-being is happy, capable, well-supported, satisfied with professional and personal life effectively. The entrance to the undergraduate course is an important transitory period for young people. Understanding the well-being of young adults and the factors that contribute to it will help towards clarifying and defining ways to better help to prepare for their lives. Present study has been undertaken to compare the dimensions of psychological wellbeing among undergraduate male and female students of selected colleges of Cachar district, Assam. A total of 77 undergraduate students were enrolled for the study using non probability sampling technique. To assess the psychological wellbeing, Psychological Well-Being (PWB) scale developed by Carol D Ryff is used. Findings of the study revealed that majority of the participants (92.2%) belong to the age group of 18-20 years. Among the participants majority i.e. 71.4% were female. The mean total score of psychological wellbeing between male and female students didn’t reveal any significant difference but statistically significant differences were found between male and female students in some of the dimensions of psychological well-being, i.e. in self-acceptance (p<0.05), autonomy (p<0.01) and positive relationship with others (p<0.01). The study concluded that there exists a gender difference in the various dimension of psychological wellbeing. There is a need to develop policies and strategies intended to increase the well-being of students to achieve greater gender equality.