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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.

We'll explore the students data using PostgreSQL to find out if we would come to a similar conclusion for international students and see if the length of stay is a contributing factor.

Field NameDescription
inter_domTypes of students (international or domestic)
stayCurrent length of stay in years
todepTotal score of depression (PHQ-9 test)
toscTotal score of social connectedness (SCS test)
toasTotal score of acculturative stress (ASISS test)
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DataFrameas
df1
variable
--to view the table and get acquainted with the data, we'll run this simple statement to view all with no filters
select *
from students;
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DataFrameas
df
variable
-- now that we 'feel' the data a litter better after viewing all, we'll calculate, aggregate, segregate, and order the results for a clean easy to read output..
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'
GROUP BY stay
ORDER BY stay DESC;