Daily life stress and its correlates among high school students in Hualien city.

Adolescence is a period of physical, cognitive, social and psychosexual changes. These developmental tasks make adolescents particularly vulnerable to life stress. The purpose of this study was to assess high school students' perception of stress from daily events and to identify its associated factors. A total of 1,195 high school students were selected via stratified cluster sampling method from nine high schools. Data from 1,141 valid answers were analyzed. A self-administrated questionnaire was used to assess students' demographic characteristics, personal traits (self-acceptance, neurotic trait), social support and perceived daily life stress. From principal component analysis, school work, concern with prospects, parent-teen relationship and peer relationship were found to be the main sources of daily life stress perceived. Personalities with high neurotic trait or low self-acceptance, perceived low social support, Chinese Hans and study at regular high school were important related factors. Screening by personality trait and social support questionnaire is suggested to be a routine at school to find out the high risk individuals and give them assistance in coping with stress.