Management of anxiety, depression and enhancement of general well-being in engineering college students through positive therapy

Abstract

Engineering education in India has seen tremendous growth over the past decade, both in number of students and number of colleges, however the average quality of the colleges and graduated students are suspected (Sengupta, 2006). According to Farrell et al. (2005), only one quarter of engineering graduates are eligible for employability which is revealed from a survey of Human Resource Professionals at Multinational Corporations in India. The major causes behind the poor category of students are lack of communication skills, low standard in quality education, inability to impart practical skills, lack of interpersonal skills and negative attitude in leadership, teamwork and time management. Millions of youth are experiencing symptoms that are making daily routines problematic. Anxiety is one of the wide varieties of emotional and behaviour disorders and a major predictor for low academic performance among students (McCraty, 2007). Rates of depression in college students are also emerging high from factors, such as, academic pressure, inadequate social adaptation, inadequate sleep, and the stress of the overall transition to college life (Keith, 2010).Thus, college students are highly affected by anxiety and depression in their academic life leading to low general well-being. In this research, 200 engineering students from K.S.R. College of Technology, Tiruchengode were selected by Purposive Sampling. Out of 200 engineering students, 100 Electrical and Electronics Engineering and 100 Electronics and Communication Engineering students participated in this study among them,40 (from each group) were girls and 60 ( from each group) were boys of each faculty. They were assessed using Case study Schedule (Hemalatha, 2008), Manifest Anxiety Inventory (M.A.I) (Hemalatha and Nandini Revised, 2005), Beck s Depression Inventory (Beck, 1971) and WHO General Well-being Index (1998).