ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Public Mental Health
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1602808
This article is part of the Research TopicThe Intersection of Psychology, Healthy Behaviors, and its OutcomesView all 102 articles
The Relationship between Perceived Academic stress and College Students' Employment Anxiety: The Mediating Role of Psychological Resilience
Provisionally accepted
- 1Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou, China
- 2The Third Affiliated Clinical Hospital of Changchun University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jilin, China
- 3First Affiliated Hospital of Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine, Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, China
- 4School of Basic Medicine, Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine, Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, China
- 5College of Management, Changchun University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jilin, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Abstract Background University graduates increasingly face academic and employment-related pressures, particularly in the post-COVID-19 era. Employment anxiety has emerged as a significant mental health issue during the transition from school to work, but its underlying mechanisms remain underexplored. Objective This study aimed to investigate the mediating role of psychological resilience in the relationship between academic stress and employment anxiety among Chinese undergraduate students. Methods A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 1124 students from three universities in China. Participants completed validated measures of academic stress, psychological resilience, and employment anxiety. Pearson correlation analysis and mediation testing were performed using PROCESS macro Model 4, with 5000 bootstrap samples. Results Academic stress was positively associated with employment anxiety (B=0.421, p<0.001) and negatively associated with psychological resilience (B=–0.230, p<0.001). Psychological resilience negatively predicted employment anxiety (B= –0.444, p<0.001) and partially mediated the relationship between academic stress and employment anxiety. The indirect effect accounted for 19.50% of the total effect. After controlling for gender, grade, family income, and internship experience, the mediation remained significant and robust.Conclusion Psychological resilience plays a protective mediating role in the link between academic stress and employment anxiety. These findings underscore the importance of enhancing resilience through targeted interventions to reduce employment-related anxiety among university students. Educational institutions should integrate resilience-building strategies into academic and career counseling to promote student mental health and employability.
Keywords: Academic stress, Employment anxiety, psychological resilience, university students, Conservation of resources theory
Received: 30 Mar 2025; Accepted: 19 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yang, Li, Qin, Tian, Zhang and Wen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Hao Zhang, School of Basic Medicine, Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine, Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, China
Hongjuan Wen, College of Management, Changchun University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jilin, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.