Adu Henaku, Eugene, Sambah, Francis, Quansah, Frank, Agormedah, Edmond Kwesi, Srem-Sai, Medina, Hagan, John Elvis, Ankomah, Francis, Ankomah-Sey, Vera Rosemary, and Schack, Thomas (2024) Stress-related experiences and intentions to quit studies among female married postgraduate distance education students in Ghana. BMC Psychology, 12. 348.

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Abstract

Background: Although postgraduate studies have been shown to be associated with stressful experiences, students reading programmes through the distance and e-learning mode experience greater levels of stress due to several reasons. These stressful encounters might be heightened in female married postgraduates on distance education programmes due to other family-work-related engagements. This study investigated the stress-related experiences and intentions to quit studies among female married students on a distance education programme in Ghana.

Methods: Using a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design, 164 married postgraduate distance education students were sampled to participate by responding to a questionnaire. Follow-up interviews were conducted with 10 participants to offer insight into the quantitative findings. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics, including frequency and percentages, while the qualitative data were thematically analysed.

Results: Stress was prevalent among the female married distance education students, with the majority having intentions of quitting their studies. The stressors identified ranged from personal (i.e., work and family demands) to institutional ones (i.e., academic load, unresolved complaints and high financial demands from the programme).

Conclusions: Key findings suggest that female married postgraduate distance education students perform multiple roles as full-time employees with family and academic demands that can negatively impact their health and academic work. Implications and recommendations of the findings are discussed.

Item ID:	85266
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	2050-7283
Copyright Information:	© The Author(s) 2024. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
Date Deposited:	29 Apr 2025 02:13
FoR Codes:	52 PSYCHOLOGY > 5299 Other psychology > 529999 Other psychology not elsewhere classified @ 50% 42 HEALTH SCIENCES > 4206 Public health > 420699 Public health not elsewhere classified @ 50%
SEO Codes:	20 HEALTH > 2004 Public health (excl. specific population health) > 200409 Mental health @ 100%
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