ESTIMATION OF THE SOCIAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ADAPTATION STATE OF STUDENTS OF HIGHER EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS OF CHERNIVTSI IN THE CONDITIONS OF WAR
Shuper V.,
Candidate of Medical Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Internal Medicine, Clinical Pharmacology and Occupational Diseases of Bukovynian State Medical University
Chernivtsi, Ukraine
Shuper S.
Candidate of Medical Sciences, assistant professor of the Department of Physical Rehabilitation, Ergotherapy and Pre-Medical Care of Yuri Fedkovich Chernivtsi National University
Chernivtsi, Ukraine DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7607412
Abstract
The article is devoted to establish and evaluate the state of social and psychological adaptation of students of middle courses of higher educational institutions of Bukovyna depending on the influence of medical factors and individual characteristics of individuals in the conditions of war in Ukraine. The revealed results differed significantly from the pre-war indicators and demonstrated a decrease in the level of social and psychological adaptation in general in all studied students. The presence of a negative impact of a decrease in socio-psychological adaptation on motivation to study and on current study results is also noted. This situation can complicate the professional formation of specialists of this profile and cause difficulties in self-regulation in the future, which requires the development of systematic measures to correct influencing factors of medical and non-medical origin in order to improve their social and psychological adaptation.
Keywords: socio-psychological adaptation, war, students of higher educational institutions.
Introduction. Our society is going through extremely difficult times - a full-scale war, violation of the country's integrity, significant human losses, forced resettlement of the population from the war zone, loss of housing, relatives, opportunities to live and work normally. A large part of the population experiences mental and physical losses, feels constant fear for themselves and their family members, confusion, exacerbation of stress disorders, difficulty in adapting to new living conditions. The military conflict continues, and the time and method of its resolution cannot be predicted, as a result of which there is an increase in anxious moods in society, fear, disappointment, and maladaptation.
Military actions always cause a considerable number of injuries, traumas and human losses. The resulting stress in the conditions of war inevitably affects the emotional and psychological state of individuals, in particular students, which can accompany them for a long time and affect the course of their adaptation to the changed conditions of life and study. Among the many economic, political, and social consequences that any war brings to society, there are also psychological consequences.
The problem of socio-psychological adaptation of specialists is of constant interest to scientists due to society's need for competent and competitive specialists who are able to quickly adapt to the conditions of society without feeling discomfort and conflict with it. Social adaptation of students to the educational process is the basis of their further formation and development to achieve professional and personal success. It includes not only adaptation to new conditions of learning and acquiring knowledge, but also to a new social environment, new living conditions, and in general to life during the war.
At present situation in Ukraine, the further development of students as an individual and as a future professional largely depends on the success of the one's so-cio-psychological adaptation to the educational process under martial law. The quality of the realization of the individual abilities of the student in the field of professional activity and outside it depends on how quickly and effectively he overcomes obstacles during the mastering of professional competencies. The acquired skills and abilities will become the foundation for personal and career growth, the formation of life principles and ideals [1].
That is why the issue of socio-psychological adaptation of students from higher education institutions to study and its features in the conditions of martial law is very relevant today and requires in-depth study.
The purpose of the study: to establish and evaluate the state of social and psychological adaptation of students from higher educational institutions of Cher-nivtsi depending on the influence of medical factors and individual characteristics in the conditions of the war in Ukraine.
Analysis of recent research and publications.
The concept of "adaptation" includes the formation of the most adequate stereotypes of behavior in the conditions of a changing microsocial environment [2].
Traumatic events and circumstances radically change the usual lifestyle of people, their daily routine and duties, relationships, dreams, values, priorities, which requires constant adaptation to crisis conditions. The presence of a crisis, on the one hand, can have a negative impact on living conditions, and on the other hand, it can encourage the search for new opportunities, the realization of unrealized potential and hidden human resources, and the development of effective psychological adaptation strategies. Two types of factors of personality adaptation in war conditions can be distinguished. The first type is the factors that contribute
to the successful adaptation of the individual. These factors exert a positive influence, help a person to adapt to new environmental conditions, to the norms and rules of behavior adopted in it, to adapt to a new social role, to rethink their place in society. Such factors stimulate a person to fully engage in social activities, help in recovery after the traumatic experience. The second type is the factors that destroy the successful adaptation of the individual. Such factors exert a negative influence, support the destructive behavior of a person, a negative assessment of the life situation, do not contribute to or hinder recovery and, in general, complicate the process of adaptation of a person [3].
The criteria for successful social and psychological adaptation include: subjective self-assessment of the degree of adaptation; vocative emotional state; availability of opportunities for further development; positive retrospective evaluation after a certain time. Thus, the emphasis places on the positive assessment of the situation and an optimistic view.
At first glance, the process of adaptation includes the individual's efforts to fit one's own life world into a new system of social coordinates. However, in reality, a person who has accepted the new social reality into the personal system of ideas about what is happening around can be considered as adapted [3].
In the conditions of war, changes can be observed at many levels of the life activity of each individual: at the psychological level, creativity, balance, and adaptability decrease; at the value-semantic level, the ability to search for meaning, to make sense of one's own experience is temporarily lost, in general, it becomes more difficult to enjoy everyday life; on the socio-psy-chological level, the tendency to cooperate, as well as the ability to empathize, decrease also [4].
In the socio-psychological context, the phenomenon of adaptation is considered as a complex process not only of the coexistence of the individual and the environment, but as their unification in a new system of a higher level of organization. The new system arises as a result of the active interaction of the subject of adaptation and the environment and involves mutual two-way changes [5]. The theoretical analysis of research on socio-psychological adaptation allows us to define it as a complex multidimensional process of interaction, as a result of which a new positive social identity is formed, which is adequate to social changes, which, in particular, occur as a result of a military conflict; as a process of positive development of a person, increasing his potential when including him in the system of interpersonal relations and finding conditions for satisfying the needs for self-respect and self-realization [6].
The main material. The study was conducted among students of Bukovinian State Medical University (BSMU) and Yuriy Fedkovich Chernivtsi National University (ChNU) in the fall of 2022 after 7 months of full-scale war in Ukraine. 97 students aged 19-21 took part in the study: ChNU - 57, BSMU - 40; men -24.7%, women - 75.3%.
To evaluate indicators of socio-psychological adaptation of students, we used the results of answers to questions of the Rogers-Diamond questionnaire [7, 8]. With the help of special formulas, integral indicators of
adaptation, self-perception, perception of others, integrity, emotional comfort, desire for dominance were calculated. Statistical processing was carried out using the Microsoft Excel package, Student's t-test and correlation coefficient.
It was established that the level of adaptation of BSMU students was lower (58.23±2.34) than that of ChNU students (62.39±2.54), especially in the presence of chronic diseases, which may be a consequence of being in constant emotional stress against the background of the revealed lower possibility of physical activity of medical students in the conditions of war, as well as the greater prevalence of harmful habits and lack of independence in making a decision regarding the choice of a higher educational institution.
The indicators of self-perception and emotional comfort of BSMU students were probably lower than those of ChNU students (self-perception 62.76±2.25 and 69.45±1.89, emotional comfort 59.11±2.29 and 64.41±2.18, respectively), especially in person with chronic diseases and bad habits. Indicators of integrity also significantly differed among students of ChNU and BSMU. Thus, female students of ChNU without bad habits and chronic diseases had the highest score (71.61±2.27), whether than female students of BSMU had the lowest score (61.82±2.56).
Correlation analysis revealed that the adaptation index of BSMU students has a strong positive dependence on self-perception (+0.67), as well as on emotional comfort (+0.84) and the desire to dominate (+0.76) (especially in women). In male students of BSMU, a direct strong dependence of adaptation on integrality (+0.67) and emotional comfort (+0.76) was revealed. A strong positive correlation dependence of adaptation on integrality (+0.84) and adaptation on emotional comfort (+0.73) was found in students of ChNU.
The revealed results differed significantly from the pre-war indicators and demonstrated a decrease in the level of social and psychological adaptation in general in all assessed students. The more pronounced drop of indicators was found in female medical students, that can be explained by lower stress resistance, higher anxiety, increased uncertainty about the future and the influence of social and household factors in wartime conditions. The presence of a negative impact of a decrease in socio-psychological adaptation on motivation to study and on current study results was also noted.
Conclusions. The assessment of student adaptation revealed a significant decrease in general of socio-psychological adaptation indicators of students under conditions of prolonged stress caused by full-scale military operations in Ukraine and severe, even destructive, changes in the usual existence of society as a whole.
The assessment of the adaptation of future doctors revealed a significant decrease in indicators due to emotional discomfort and the drop of self-perception in comparison with students of ChNU. Also, the presence of a negative impact of a decrease in social and psychological adaptation on motivation to study and on current study results requires special psychological attention.
This situation can complicate the professional formation of specialists of this profile and cause difficulties in self-regulation in the future, which requires the development of systematic measures to correct influencing factors of medical and non-medical origin in order to improve social and psychological adaptation of students.
References
1. Shevchuk, I., Shevchuk, A. (2022). Osvitnia analityka kriz pryzmu viiny: vyklyky ta mozhlyvosti dlia vyshchoi shkoly Ukrainy [Educational analytics through the lens of war: challenges and opportunities for higher education in Ukraine]. - Ekonomika ta suspilstvo, 39. doi: 10.32782/2524-0072/2022-39-80 [in Ukrainian].
2. Prib, H.A., Raievska, Ya.M., Beheza, L.Ie. (2022). Sotsialno-psykholohichni osoblyvosti adaptatsii osobystosti v umovakh boiovykh dii [Socio-psychological features of personality adaptation in condition of combat]. - Vcheni zapysky TNU imeni V.I. Vernadskoho. Seriia: Psykholohiia, 33 (72),104-109 [in Ukrainian].
3. Levchenko, M., Fedenko, S., Forostian, F. (2022). Osoblyvosti sotsialnoi adaptatsii zdobuvachiv vyshchoi osvity [Peculiarities of social adaptation of students of higher education]. - Aktualni pytannia hu-manitarnykh nauk, 52(2), 186-192. doi: 10.24919/2308-4863/52-2-28 [in Ukrainian].
4. Korobka, L.M. (2015). Sotsialno-psykholo-hichna adaptatsiia spilnoty do umov i naslidkiv voien-noho konfliktu: teoretychni zasady doslidzhennia [So-cio-psychological adaptation of the community to the conditions and consequences of the military conflict: theoretical foundations of the study]. - Aktualni prob-lemy sotsiolohii, psykholohii, pedahohiky, 4 (29), 7682 [in Ukrainian].
5. Serebryakova, T.A., Morozova, L.B., Kochneva, E.M., Zharova, D.V., Kostyleva, E.A., Ko-larkova, O.G. (2016). Emotional Stability as a Condition of Students' Adaptation to Studying in a Higher Educational Institution. - International Journal of Environmental and Science Education, 11(15), 7486-7494.
6. Overchuk, V., Shindirovskaya, O. (2021). Social-psychological adaptation of the applicants of higher education in the condition of social instability. -Visnyk of the Lviv University. Series Psychological science, 9, 178-185 [in Ukrainian].
7. Lemak, M.V., Petryshche, V.Iu. (2012). Psykholohu dlia roboty. Diahnostychni metodyky: zbirnyk [To a psychologist for work. Diagnostic methods: collection] (2nd ed., rev.). Uzhhorod: Vydavny-tstvo Oleksandry Harkushi. 616 s.
8. Fetiskin, N.P., Kozlov, V.V., Manuilov H.M. (2002). Sotsialno-psykholohichna diahnostyka rozvytku osobystosti i malykh hrup (Social and psychological diagnosis of personality development and small groups). M., Vyd-vo Instytutu Psykhoterapii. 490 s [in Ukrainian].