Fear, anxiety and coping. Mexican university students Miedo, ansiedad y afrontamiento. Estudiantes universitarios mexicanos

Abstract

Objective: This research was to identify the relationship between different situations that generate fear and anxiety, and the strategies for facing up this phenomenon by Mexican students of higher education. Method: A non-experimental study, of transversal type, with multiple continuous variables. In the study works on 1,557 Mexican students (47.8% women, and 52.2% male), age media = 21.56 (SD = 3.23). The fear intensity (α = 0.90) was measured with an instrument focused on seven kinds of situations. The situations in descendent order of impact are being a violence victim, social violence, death and paranormal experiences, social isolation, animals, unpleasant scholar experiences and medical assistance experiences. The
anxiety was measured with the Beck’s Anxiety Inventory (2001), with a validation to Mexican population (α = 0.84). Through open-ended questions, participants were ask about what they would do in each of the
seven situations that cause fear, in order to identify the types of coping they use. Results: fear and anxiety correlated significantly (0.01)
and positively, both in the total sample and in the groups of men and women separately. Regarding strategies to cope with situations
that cause fear, the most used were those that directly address the problem, followed by doing nothing, avoidance strategies, emotional relief, distraction strategies, aggressive strategies and seeking support. The correlations between the first two were high, significant and negative, both in the general sample and in the samples of men and women separately.