Academic stress, perceived parental pressure, and anxiety related to competitive entrance examinations and the general well-being among adolescents - A cross-sectional survey from Karnataka, India.

Background: In this competitive world, students undergo various scholastic stress and mental health issues. The scholastic stress has a great impact on students' life and results in the prevalence of several psychological consequences such as stress-related disorders, anxiety, depression, and nervousness, which disturb their academic performances. Therefore, the present study was conducted to assess academic stress, perceived parental pressure, and anxiety related to competitive entrance examinations and the general well-being among adolescents.

Materials And Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2023 among 570 adolescents who were planning to give competitive entrance examination in Pre-University Colleges of Udupi District, Karnataka, India. The data were collected using Background Proforma, Academic Stress Scale related to Competitive Examination, Perceived Parental Academic Pressure Scale, Westside Test Anxiety Scale, and General Well-being Scale. The purposive sampling technique was used to select Pre-University Colleges, and the adolescents were selected using cluster sampling. The collected data were analysed by Jamovi 2.3.21 software using descriptive statistics.

Results: The results showed that the majority of adolescents, 490 (86.0%), have high academic stress, 496 (87.0%) experienced high perceived parental pressure, 163 (28.5%) had moderately high anxiety, and 351 (57.7%) have low general well-being. There was no significance difference between class of study and stream of study.

Conclusion: The study concluded that it is essential for the health care professionals to collaborate with parents and teachers to support adolescents and give them a congenial environment that will promote the healthy physical and psychological well-being of the adolescents.