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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Mental Health and Wellbeing in Education
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1423406
Self-efficacy and stress as predictors of anxiety in Peruvian and Mexican university students: A cross-sectional study
Provisionally accepted
José Anicama 1
Raymundo Calderón 2
David Javier-Aliaga 3* Graciela Caballero 1 Karina Talla 1 Ruth Pizarro 3
Yaquelin E. Calizaya-Milla 4
Jacksaint Saintila 5*- 1 National University Federico Villareal, Lima, Peru
- 2 American University, Guadalajara, Mexico
- 3 Universidad Autónoma del Perú, Lima, Peru
- 4 Faculty of Health Sciences, Peruvian Union University, Lima, Peru
- 5 Faculty of Health Sciences, Lord of Sipan University, Chiclayo, Peru
Background: In recent decades, anxiety has emerged as a major concern worldwide, significantly affecting the mental health and academic performance of college students. However, there is a paucity of studies that explore this problem from a predictive perspective. Therefore, the objective of this study was to determine the predictive value of stress and self-efficacy in anxiety in university students from Peru and Mexico. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 2,167 university students, 1,160 of whom were Peruvian and 1,007 of whom were Mexican. The General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSES), Stress Scale for Transmissible Diseases (APA scale), and Generalized Anxiety Scale (GAD-7) were used. The predictive analysis was conducted using multiple linear regression. Results: The results showed that Mexican students reported significantly higher levels of stress (M = 9.81, SD = 9.81, d = .277, p < .001) and anxiety (M = 9.46, SD = 9.46, d = .212, p < .
Keywords: In the regression analysis, for Peruvian students, stress (β = .6072, CI [.5602, .6541], p < .001) was the main predictor of anxiety, followed by selfefficacy (β = -.0765, CI [-.1230
Received: 25 Apr 2024; Accepted: 14 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Anicama, Calderón, Javier-Aliaga, Caballero, Talla, Pizarro, Calizaya-Milla and Saintila. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
David Javier-Aliaga, Universidad Autónoma del Perú, Lima, Peru
Jacksaint Saintila, Faculty of Health Sciences, Lord of Sipan University, Chiclayo, Peru
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