Relationships, Health, and Spirituality among College Students: Factors of College Success

This explorative longitudinal study investigated the relationship between healthrelated quality of life (HRQL) and various social and faith factors associated with the home to college transition. Data from 347 collegians attending a Christian University were utilized for this study and results uncovered that over the course of a year, gender, time, significant emotional relationships, a psychosocial abuse history, and faith importance predicted HRQL. In addition to each having a main effect, there were unique interactions among the variables that predicted outcomes. The findings provide valuable theoretical and practical insight on what colleges and universities can do to address deteriorating collegian mental health and cultivate resiliency in their student body, particularly among incoming freshmen. Additionally, this study also synthesized several human development, social, and family science theories into a single cross-disciplinary framework. This new framework called the socio-emotional resituational framework (S.E.R.F) provides a developmental roadmap of the home to college transition as well as insight about how to facilitate optimum young adult development. SERF is divided into two parts, the conceptual theory and theory of change and each part is described and applied