Personality traits and mental health of local and international students in a public university in Malaysia: A comparative study / Nafiseh Kananifar

University students are an important pillar in building the society as they represent how the society is shaped generation after generations. Various challenges during study period have been found affecting the students, resulting in an increment of mental health issues. Therefore, student mental health requires a special concern by the educational authorities to avoid undesirable consequences that may accrue due to severe mental health issues. This research presents a cross-sectional study to evaluate the prevalence of mental health among the University of Malaya (local and international) students based on their personality traits. According to statistical information given by Information System of Malaya University, the sampling size has been computed. Gpower and Cochran formula have been employed to obtain and verify the sampling size. Thus, a total of 755 samples; include 352 for international and 403 for local Malaysian students, were selected for data analysis. Three personality traits measurements namely: Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-FFI), Clance Imposter Phenomenon Scale (CIPS) and MACH Questionnaires (MACH-IV), have been used for personality data collection. Besides, General Health Questionnaires (GHQ-28) has been employed for screening student’s mental health. All the data was collected through self-administrated questionnaires filling by university students after the reliability of the selected tools were verified. The acquired data was analyzed by using multiple statistical methods. The comparisons of personality differences and mental health among the university students (local and international) have been investigated using Two-way Analysis of Variance (2-way ANOVA). In addition, the relationship of personality traits and mental health was examined through correlation and regression analysis. Prior to the data analysis, the normality and construct validity have been checked. All the data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics software (Version 21) and AMOS (Version 21) while Microsoft Office Excel has been used to prepare and tabulate the data. The data iv analysis results demonstrated that there were no significant differences between local and international students in terms of personality traits and mental health. However, there was a significant difference between male and female in both personality traits and mental health. In addition, the correlation results revealed that some of the personality traits factors were significantly correlated with mental health state. Finally, yet importantly, the regression analysis was shown that student’s mental health condition could be predicted using personality traits. According to the statistical analysis results, a shortened personality traits questionnaire named University of Malaya Personality Traits Questionnaire (UM-PTQ) has been developed using factor analysis approach and the content validity was checked through a panel of experts. The reliability of new tool has been checked using Cronbach’s Alpha, the result shows that the developed tool is reliable to use at the University of Malaya as well as any personality and mental health assessment in future