Mental Health among Undergraduates from Malaysia and Pakistan: A Cross-Cultural Study

Abstract

Mental health issues were reported with increased prevalence across the globe during the COVID-19 pandemic era. The present research is focused to study the cross-cultural prevalence of mental health among Malaysian and Pakistani undergraduates during the pandemic phase in 2021.  A cross-sectional online survey was conducted on a total of 533 graduates, 263 (49.30%) Malaysian and 270 (50.70%) Pakistani from different universities, with age range 20 - 30 years old (M = 22.81; SD = 2.30) and including males = 87 (16.30%) and females = 446 (83.70%). The purposive sampling technique was implied and the Mental Health Inventory (MHI-18) was administered to collect data. The results revealed that there was a significant relationship related to the psychological distress dimension of mental health among Malaysian and Pakistani respondents. Males scored lower than females in both Psychological Distress and Psychological Well-Being. Malaysian scored higher in Psychological Well-Being but lower in Psychological Distress as compared to Pakistanis students. Finally, there was no difference in both Psychological Distress and Psychological Well-Being when age is compared. In light of these results, we can conclude that Malaysian has a higher score on psychological well-being as compared to Pakistani undergraduate's students.  These findings could provide cross-cultural theoretical implications and contribute to evidence-based social policy and social work intervention to promote adults' mental well-being to reduce psychological distress.