Life satisfaction of seminary final year students in Yangon, Myanmar: a path analytic study of the direct and indirect influences of coping styles being mediated by stress, anxiety and depression

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influences of coping styles on the life satisfaction of a sample of seminary final year students in Yangon, Myanmar, both directly and indirectly being mediated by their levels of reported stress, anxiety and depression. A total of 218 Yangon seminary final year students (aged between 20 to 45 years) participated in this study by filling in a self-administered questionnaire designed to measure the study's primary variables (stress, anxiety, depression, problem-focused coping, emotion-focused coping, avoidance-focused coping, and life satisfaction). The results of the study indicated that the Myanmar seminary final year seminary students' employment of the emotion-focused coping and avoidance-focused coping styles is directly and significantly related to their reported level of life satisfaction, although in opposite directions. The results also showed that the more the seminary students employed emotion-focused coping to deal with stressful situations, the higher their reported levels of depression, anxiety, and stress. The more the seminary students employed avoidance-focused coping to deal with stressful situations, the lower their reported level of depression. The implications of these findings in relation to the need to assist final year students identify which coping strategy is most effective in helping them cope with the daily stressors they encounter during their final year period were discussed.