The Role of Physical Health, Sexuality, and Social Support as Predictors of Academic Stress Among College Students: a Biopsychosocial Model

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-803-0_11How to use a DOI?

Keywords

public health; public policies; multiple regression

Abstract

Academic stress among college students is a multifaceted phenomenon that requires explanatory models incorporating biological, psychological, and social factors. The present study examined the predictive power of physical health, social support, and gender on perceived stress among 761 Mexican college students (56.6% male) using a quantitative cross-sectional design. Psychometrically validated composite indices were constructed, and a hierarchical multiple regression was applied across four sequential models. Results indicated that physical health was the strongest predictor of stress (β = .46, p < .001), followed by sex (β = -.27, p < .001, with men reporting higher stress) and social support (β = -.22, p < .001). The final model explained 23.3% of the variance in stress (R² = .233, F = 37.10, p < .001). Time management was not a significant predictor when controlling the other factors. Important sex differences were identified in correlation patterns: in men, stress was significantly associated with wellbeing (r = -.29) and social support (r = -.20), whereas in women these associations were not significant. These results support a biopsychosocial model of university stress in which physical health operates as the primary predictor, with differential implications by sex for the design of preventive interventions.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - María Eugenia Reyes-Pedraza
AU  - Noé Emmanuel Del-Real-Garcia
AU  - María Delia Tellez-Castilla
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/16
TI  - The Role of Physical Health, Sexuality, and Social Support as Predictors of Academic Stress Among College Students: a Biopsychosocial Model
BT  - Proceedings of the VI International Conference on Communication and Applied Technologies 2026 (ICOMTA 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 100
EP  - 111
SN  - 2667-128X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-803-0_11
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-803-0_11
ID  - Reyes-Pedraza2026
ER  -