International Students and mental health

Does going to university in a different country affect your mental health? A Japanese international university surveyed its students in 2018 and published a study the following year that was approved by several ethical and regulatory boards.

The study found that international students have a higher risk of mental health difficulties than the general population, and that social connectedness (belonging to a social group) and acculturative stress (stress associated with joining a new culture) are predictive of depression.

Explore the students data using PostgreSQL to find out if you would come to a similar conclusion for international students and see if the length of stay is a contributing factor.

Here is a data description of the columns you may find helpful.

Field Name	Description
`inter_dom`	Types of students (international or domestic)
`japanese_cate`	Japanese language proficiency
`english_cate`	English language proficiency
`academic`	Current academic level (undergraduate or graduate)
`age`	Current age of student
`stay`	Current length of stay in years
`todep`	Total score of depression (PHQ-9 test)
`tosc`	Total score of social connectedness (SCS test)
`toas`	Total score of acculturative stress (ASISS test)

DataFrameas

students

variable

-- Run this code to save the CSV file as students
SELECT * 
FROM 'students.csv' AS students;

Hidden output

DataFrameas

a

variable

-- Start coding here...
SELECT COUNT(*) AS total_records, 
	COUNT(inter_dom) AS count_inter_dom
FROM students
GROUP BY inter_dom;

Hidden output

DataFrameas

International

variable

SELECT *
FROM students
WHERE inter_dom = 'Inter';

Hidden output

DataFrameas

Domestic

variable

SELECT *
FROM students
WHERE inter_dom = 'Dom';

Hidden output

DataFrameas

Unknown

variable

SELECT *
FROM students
WHERE inter_dom IS NULL;

Hidden output

DataFrameas

CTE

variable

WITH CTE AS (
SELECT
  inter_dom,
  MIN (todep) AS min_phq,
  MAX(todep) AS max_phq,
  ROUND (AVG(todep), 2) AS avg_phq,
  MIN(tosc) AS min_scs,
  MAX(tosc) AS max_scs,
  ROUND (AVG(tosc), 2) AS avg_scs,
  MIN(toas) AS min_as,
  MAX(toas) AS max_as,
  ROUND (AVG(toas), 2) AS avg_as
FROM (
  SELECT
    inter_dom,
    todep,
    tosc,
    toas
  FROM students
) AS students_tests
GROUP BY inter_dom
ORDER BY inter_dom) 

SELECT * 
FROM CTE
ORDER BY inter_dom;

Hidden output

I grouped by inter_dom, which separated the summary statistics in three groups; Inter, Dom and Null (i.e their status is unknown) Created a temporary table CTE to store the summary statistics

DataFrameas

df

variable

SELECT stay, 
       ROUND(AVG(todep), 2) AS average_phq, 
       ROUND(AVG(tosc), 2) AS average_scs, 
       ROUND(AVG(toas), 2) AS average_as
FROM students
WHERE inter_dom = 'Inter'
GROUP BY stay
ORDER BY stay DESC;