Abstract:

Objective To investigate the mental health status and personality characteristics of art students in Shaoxing. Methods Four hundred and sixty-eight students were selected from three art schools in Shaoxing by stratified clustered random sampling, and were surveyed with Psychological Health Inventory (PHI). The validity of PHI was measured by three validity subscales, the mental health status of subjects were evaluated by seven clinical subscales, raw scores of subscales were compared with Chinese norms, and were statistically analysed with T scores. Results Four hundred and twenty-six valid scales were recovered, with the recovery rate of 91.02%. The raw scores of subscales of male subjects were higher than Chinese norms, and statistical differences were found in all the clinical subscales (P<0.05 or P<0.01) except the subscale of hypochondria. There was no significant difference in the raw scores of subscale of psychopathic deviate between female subjects and Chinese norms. The raw scores of subscale of depression and hypomania in female subjects were significantly higher than Chinese norms (P<0.01), while those of the other subscales were significantly lower than Chinese norms (P<0.01). The main psychological problems of art school students were hypomania (19.48%), unreality (19.01%) and depression (15.02%). The detection rates of deviant personality (60≤T score<70) and psychopathic personality (T score≥70) were 44.37% and 17.61%, respectively. The detection rate of psychopathic personality in male subjects (31.2%) was significantly higher than that in female subjects (14.6%)(P<0.01). Conclusion Psychological monitoring and education should be conducted among art school students with 60≤T score <70 or T≥70 in PHI, and individual psychological intervention should be performed accordingly.

Key words: mental health, Psychological Health Inventory, art major, student