Academic Perfectionism, Psychological Well-Being, and Suicidal Ideation in College Students

Olga Fernández-García, María Dolores Gil-Llario (), Jesús Castro-Calvo, Vicente Morell-Mengual, Rafael Ballester-Arnal and Verónica Estruch-García
Additional contact information
Olga Fernández-García: Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Valencia, 46010 Valencia, Spain
María Dolores Gil-Llario: Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Valencia, 46010 Valencia, Spain
Jesús Castro-Calvo: Department of Personality, Assessment, and Psychological Treatments, Faculty of Psychology, University of Valencia, 46010 Valencia, Spain
Vicente Morell-Mengual: Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Valencia, 46010 Valencia, Spain
Rafael Ballester-Arnal: Department of Basic and Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology, Faculty of Health Sciences, Jaume I University, 12007 Castellón de la Plana, Spain
Verónica Estruch-García: Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Valencia, 46010 Valencia, Spain

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 20, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: High levels of perfectionism in college students can compromise their academic performance and psychological well-being. This study aims to analyze the implication of perfectionism in psychological well-being and suicidal ideation in the last year. A total of 1.287 students from different degrees reported their academic performance in the previous academic year and completed questionnaires on academic perfectionism, psychological well-being, and suicidal thoughts in the last year. In both men and women, academic perfectionism correlates positively with academic performance and negatively with the different dimensions of psychological well-being. Likewise, both the average grade in the previous year ( β = 0.364) and the level of demand of the degree ( β = −0.461) are mediating variables between perfectionism and psychological well-being. Furthermore, the interaction between perfectionism and academic performance is related positively to psychological well-being, but not to with suicidal ideation. So, the relation between suicidal ideation and perfectionism is positive (OR = 1.075), but this is negative with academic performance (OR = 0.900), although both variables show a mild predictive capacity. These findings suggest that the levels of perfectionism are associated differently with the mental health of students, since if perfectionism is effective (high academic performance), psychological well-being is high, although in our results, this interaction is not as important for suicidal thoughts.

Keywords: academic perfectionism; psychological well-being; suicidal ideation; college students; academic performance; gender differences; mental health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/1/85/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/1/85/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2022:i:1:p:85-:d:1010271

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().