The impact of multiple stressors on college students’ anxiety: The moderating roles of interpersonal sensitivity and perceived social support

Acta Psychol (Amst). 2026 May 7;267:107004. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2026.107004. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

This study examined the associations between stressors across two salient domains, academic and family, and anxiety among college students, and tested the moderating roles of interpersonal sensitivity and perceived social support. A total of 412 college students completed the Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90) and the Mental Health Inventory for College Students, which assessed academic stress, family stress, interpersonal sensitivity, perceived social support, and anxiety. After excluding eight questionnaires with missing data, 404 valid responses were retained. Data were analyzed using SPSS 26.0. Pearson correlations were computed to examine bivariate associations, and hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to test moderation effects. Results indicated that both academic stress and family stress were positively associated with anxiety. Interpersonal sensitivity significantly moderated the relationships between academic stress and anxiety as well as between family stress and anxiety. Perceived social support significantly moderated the association between academic stress and anxiety, but not the association between family stress and anxiety. Together, these findings highlight the relevance of co-occurring multi-domain stress exposure for understanding anxiety in college students and identify interpersonal sensitivity as a cross-domain vulnerability factor, while suggesting that the buffering role of perceived social support may be stressor specific. The results further suggest that mental health interventions should consider heterogeneity in stressor sources and provide targeted social support strategies tailored to specific stress contexts.

PMID:42102685 | DOI:10.1016/j.actpsy.2026.107004