psychological Stressors and Their Relationships to Defense Mechanisms and Somatoform Disorders among An- Najah and Birzeit Universities Students
Authors: Mohammad Rajeh Suleiman  
Published: May 2021

This study aimed to identify the levels of psychological stress and the most common defense mechanisms. Revealing the level of somatoform disorders among An- Najah National University and Birzeit students. This study also sought to detect the relations among these three variables, and effects of some demographic variables of (gender, college, university, living place, academic year, economical level) have been examined at this study in the psychological stress, defense mechanisms, and somatoform disorders, To achieve these goals, the researcher built and developed three instruments tools are: psychological stress scale, defense mechanisms scale, somatoform disorders scale. Reliability and validity of these scales have been verified and results show that, They are valid to use, The research population consists of all students of An- Najah National University and Birzeit University in Palestine, the study sample consists of (300) students from both universities, the sample have been chosen with stratified random method, and the researcher used the correlative descriptive method, The researcher used Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), suitable statistical processors have been used to answer the study questions. The study comes out with many results, the assessment of psychological stress represented by life, family, social, academic, and economical stress was intermediate. The assessment of political stress was low. The assessment of extent of using defense mechanisms represented by inhibition, projection, regression, denial, and reaction formation was intermediate, also the assessment of the range of having a somatoform disorders was intermediate, there were a positive correlation relation and it was statistically significant among all of the study variables which represented by somatoform disorders and psychological stress with different sources (life, family, social, academic, economical, and political factors) on psychological defense mechanisms (inhibition, projection, regression, denial, and reaction formation). The results showed that the variable of gender has an effect in the extent of using reaction formation mechanisms at (α = 0.01), while there were no effection in the rest of dependent variables represented by inhibition, projection, and denial mechanisms, and physical disorders, life, family social, academic, economical, political stresses. The results also indicated that males most likely to use the defense of reaction formation more than females, On the other have the variable of the college (natural sciences, and human sciences) has an effect in reaction formation mechanisms at the alpha level (α=0.05), in favor of human sciences students. The effect of college variable on somatoform disorders at (α= 0.01) was in favor for natural sciences students, while it did not affect the other variables, Based by on these results; the researcher recommendes to increase the awareness using brochures, TV channels, and the internet to make sure that students don't have to use defense mechanisms a lot as they are connected to have somatoform disorders. The students and those who have the responsibility to take care of them, have to find constructive outlets to reduce psychological stresses, have a good management and know how to deal with them as they are also connected to the somatoform disorders infection.