Mental Health and Emotional Intelligence among University Students: A Correlational Study

Abstract

Mental health is a major concern among university students today because academic and personal challenges may be associated with symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress. This study aimed to examine the association between emotional intelligence (EI) and mental health indicators, namely symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress, among university students. In addition, this study also examined gender differences in emotional intelligence and mental health indicators. Data were collected from 61 university students and analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation analysis, and an independent-samples t-test. Findings showed that there was a strong positive association between depression, anxiety, and stress. Meanwhile, emotional intelligence had a weak but significant negative association with anxiety (r = −0.276, p = .031) and depression (r = −0.267, p = .038), indicating that students with higher emotional intelligence tended to report lower levels of anxiety and depression. However, the association between emotional intelligence and stress was weak and not statistically significant (r = −0.232, p = .072). Results also indicated that there were no significant gender differences in emotional intelligence, depression, anxiety, or stress. Overall, this study's findings indicate that higher emotional intelligence scores were weakly associated with lower anxiety and depression scores in this sample. The findings may provide preliminary information for universities, counsellors, and policymakers as they consider student emotional well-being programmes and future intervention research.