Academic Stress and Suicidal Ideation: Moderated Mediation Study

Objective: To examine the moderated mediation association of coping and resilience on academic stress and suicidal ideation. Method: We sample 505 undergraduate volunteers [including 329(65.1%) males and 176(34.9%) females] from three South-Eastern Nigerian Universities. Participants were administered self-report: Lakaev Academic Stress Response Scale (LASRS; Lakaev, 2006), Scale for Suicidal Ideation (SSI; Beck, Kovacs, & Weissman, 1979), Brief COPE (B-COPE; Carver, 1997) and Resilience Scale (RS-14; Wagnild & Young, 1993). Results: Hayes regression-based PROCESS macro showed that academic stress was a significant predictor of coping. Coping did not significantly predict suicidal ideation but moderated the effect of academic stress on suicidal ideation, such that low or moderate coping with academic stress would most likely lead to suicidal ideation. However, resilience negatively predicted suicidal ideation and was positively associated with academic stress. A Sobel test (z = 3.21, p = .004) confirmed that resilience fully mediated the relationship between academic stress and suicidal ideation. Conclusion: Educational administrators and policy makers should incorporate courses and teachings that entail effective coping skills as well as inculcate resilience especially to fresh undergraduates, since resilient students recover from academic stress given that they practice adequate coping strategies; and such students may not likely ideate about suicide