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) |
-- Run this code to view the data in students
SELECT *
FROM students;-- The query selects 5 columns: stay, count_int, average_phq, average_scs, and average_as.
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 inter_dom = 'Inter'
AND stay IS NOT NULL
GROUP BY stay
ORDER BY stay DESC
LIMIT 9;Looking at the data, where the stay column represents the number of years each student has been in Japan (from 1 to 10), we can see some interesting patterns in mental health, social connectedness, and acculturative stress over time.
For PHQ-9 scores (depression), there isn’t a perfectly consistent trend, but generally, students who have been in Japan for 1–3 years show moderately high scores (around 7.5–9), indicating mild to moderate depressive symptoms. The highest PHQ score appears for the student who has been in Japan for 10 years (13), but since this represents only one student, it’s probably an outlier rather than a trend. Overall, larger groups of newer students show that depression tends to be higher during the initial years.
When we look at social connectedness (SCS), students seem to feel slightly more connected socially after the first couple of years, with scores around 37–38 for the 2–3 year group. Some individual cases for longer stays show higher scores, but these are single-student data points. In general, social integration appears to stabilize at a moderate level after the first year.
For acculturative stress (AS), stress levels are highest in the 4–5 year range (roughly 87–91), lower for students in the early years (1–3 years: 72–78), and tend to decrease again for students who have been in Japan for longer periods (7–10 years: 45–65). This suggests that mid-term students may face more challenges as they continue to adapt to a new culture, while new arrivals are still adjusting, and long-term students have mostly settled in.
In summary:
Short-term stays (1–3 years): Moderate depression, moderate social connection, moderate stress.
Mid-term stays (4–5 years): Stress peaks, depression varies, social connection stays moderate.
Long-term stays (6–10 years): Lower stress for larger groups, social connection remains moderate, though very small sample sizes for the longest stays may skew the averages.
Overall, the length of stay provides useful insight into how international students’ mental health and adaptation change over time, but extreme values from very small groups should be interpreted cautiously.