MENTAL HEALTH AND ACADEMIC ANXIETY AMONG ADOLESCENTS: A CORRELATIONAL STUDY

Abstract

Adolescence is a critical period marked by rapid physical, emotional, and social changes, making young people particularly vulnerable to mental health challenges. One of the most pervasive among these is academic anxiety — the fear, worry, or apprehension related to performance in school — which can exert a strong influence on psychological well‐being. This correlational study investigates the relationship between mental health and academic anxiety in adolescents aged 13-18 years, with a sample drawn from urban high schools. The study aims to assess how academic anxiety relates to dimensions of mental health, including levels of stress, symptoms of depression and anxiety, self‐esteem, and overall psychological well‐being.

Using standardized, validated instruments (e.g. a mental health inventory, academic anxiety questionnaire, and measures of self‐esteem), data were collected from N = 350 adolescents. Descriptive statistics showed that a substantial proportion of the respondents report moderate to high academic anxiety. Correlation analyses (Pearson’s r) revealed a strong negative correlation between mental health scores and academic anxiety (r ≈ ‐0.60, p < .001), indicating that as academic anxiety increases, the indicators of mental health decline. Specifically, higher academic anxiety was significantly associated with elevated symptoms of general anxiety, depressive mood, lower self‐esteem, and poorer psychological well‐being.

Further analyses explored possible moderating factors: gender differences and academic performance (GPA). The findings showed that females reported somewhat higher academic anxiety levels than males, and the negative correlation with mental health was stronger among lower‐performing students. These findings suggest that both academic anxiety and its mental health consequences are not uniformly experienced, but conditioned by performance and possibly social or personal expectations.

Implications of this study are multifaceted. For educators and school mental health professionals, the results underscore the importance of routine assessment of academic anxiety, especially for students who are struggling academically. Interventions such as anxiety management workshops, mindfulness training, counselling, and creating a supportive academic environment may help mitigate anxiety and improve mental health outcomes. Limitations include the cross‐sectional design (which prevents causal inferences), reliance on self‐report measures, and sampling from a single urban area, which may limit generalizability. Future studies could adopt longitudinal designs and include diverse geographic and socioeconomic backgrounds to understand how academic anxiety evolves over time, and how it may lead to or exacerbate mental health disorders.