University students’ resilience and perceived difficulties during the Covid-19 pandemic: a pilot study in Serbia

Attending university is a stressful life period due to various factors and since the beginning of 2020 coping with the pandemic in many different aspects of life has been an additional challenge for students. Research on resilience, a personality characteristic that enables coping with different stressors successfully, is on the rise. Therefore, the main goal of this paper is to examine the resilience of university students as well as to gain insights into students’ perceptions of difficulties they experienced during the pandemic period. The sample comprised of 180 university students from 18 to 49 years old (M=22.82, SD=4.72), from different faculties of the University of Kragujevac, Serbia. Female students constituted a majority in this sample with 74.4%, and 80% of participants were bachelor students. The results show that students currently display a medium level of stress and resilience, with female students reporting higher levels of perceived stress (t(178)=2.42, p<0.01), whereas male students reported higher levels of resilience (t(178)=2.10, p<0.05). The correlation between resilience and perceived stress was negative and strong (r=-0.51, p<0.001). Students did not report high levels of experienced obstacles during the pandemic, and they were troubled the most by their emotions and general mood, studying and preparing for exams, and communicating and hanging out with friends.