Academic Psychological Capital and Mental Health: The Mediating Role of Coping Strategies.

Authors

Chung Ho Chan, Mengying Wang, Qiaoqiao Liang, Henry C Y Ho

Published in

Psychology research and behavior management. Volume 19. Pages 620379. Epub Jul 21, 2026.

Abstract

Academic pressure represents a primary source of stress for young people. While psychological capital, encompassing hope, efficacy, resilience, and optimism, benefits working populations, its significance in academic contexts remains less understood, particularly regarding student mental health. Drawing from the conservation of resources theory, it was hypothesized that academic PsyCap is prospectively associated with reduced anxiety and depressive symptoms through increased adaptive coping and decreased maladaptive coping strategies.
A two-wave prospective study was conducted on a sample of 507 undergraduate students in Hong Kong, China. Structured questionnaires were administered at the beginning (T1) and the end (T2) of the academic semester. The measures included academic PsyCap, coping strategies for academic stress, and anxiety and depressive symptoms. Structural equation modeling was conducted to test the hypothesized mediation model.
The results indicated that academic PsyCap at T1 had a negative indirect effect on anxiety and depressive symptoms at T2 through reduced maladaptive coping strategies at T2. Conversely, adaptive coping strategies at T2 did not serve as an underlying mechanism for the effect of academic PsyCap at T1 on anxiety and depressive symptoms at T2.
This study highlights the role of academic PsyCap as a valuable set of personal resources associated with reduced maladaptive navigation of academic stress and better mental health outcomes among university students. Working toward the development and evaluation of intervention programs designed to cultivate academic PsyCap may represent a potential avenue for supporting student well-being.

PMID:
42502847
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 26 Jul 2026.

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