Project: Analyzing Students' 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 view the data in students
SELECT * 
FROM students;

DataFrameas

df

variable

-- Start coding here...
SELECT 
	stay, 
	COUNT(*) AS count_int,
	ROUND(AVG(todep), 2) AS average_phq,
	ROUND(AVG(tosc), 2) AS average_scs,
	ROUND(AVG(toas), 2) AS average_as
FROM students
WHERE stay IS NOT NULL 
	AND inter_dom = 'Inter'
GROUP BY stay
ORDER BY stay DESC

So... what does it mean? Does going to university in a different country affect your mental health? 👨‍🎓

It seems that 🦉 length of stay in another country is a contributing factor to depression 🦉

so this is a similar conclusion to the one published by a Japanese international university based on a 2018 survey.

Why? 🧙🏻

👨‍🎓 Staying in another country for more than 5 years involves literally single students

so we should be looking at a maximum of 4 years of stay
where the number of students is counted in tens - almost a hundred
if it is to have any relevance to the analysis 👨‍🎓

🦉 score of social connectedness - SCS test (belonging to a social group): The longer of stay - the lower of SCS 🦉 score of acculturative stress - ASISS test (stress associated with joining a new culture): The longer of stay - the higher of ASISS but 🦉 score of depression - PHQ-9 test: Increases by "just" 1 score per year of stay

but still - it is increase – unfortunately