ABSTRACT

Psychological distress in students remains a worrying problem globally, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aims to analyze psychological distress in students from CamEd Business School and its relationship with the parenting styles of parents of these students. The relationship between psychological distress and parenting styles and the influence of traditional Asian culture on both is analyzed in the literature review. One hundred sixty-four respondents scored the Perceived Stress Scale and the Parental Authority Questionnaire to measure psychological distress and parenting styles, respectively. Scores of the PSS were compared with norm scores by One sample t-test. We conducted independent sample t-tests to analyze gender differences and regression analysis to examine the relationship between parenting styles and psychological distress. The results show a significantly higher amount of psychological distress (M=22.43) in this population than in norm groups (M= 19.63). The female gender was linked with significantly higher amounts of psychological distress than the male gender. This study found no significant correlation between parenting styles and psychological distress. The paper discusses the limitations and implications of these findings. However, we need further research on variables in psychological distress and parenting styles for this population.

Keywords: Psychological distress; Students; Parenting styles; Asian culture