Students rate sex before swot

By SIMON COLLINS, science reporter

Forget exams and work pressures at university. The big worry is romance.

Scientists have found that sexual jealousy and relationship problems are by far the biggest factors affecting the stress levels of students.

Money, study and family pressures all had nowhere near the stressful effects of romance, according to a survey of 15 male and 43 female students at the University of Western Australia.

The survey, reported at a conference in Auckland this week, found that, after adjusting for a person's basic personality, relationship issues actually had a bigger effect on people who were not currently in a relationship than on those with partners.

Sexual jealousy alone accounted for 41 per cent of the variation in stress levels among those not in current relationships, after allowing for their personalities.

Among those with partners, variations in "relationship satisfaction" accounted for 25 per cent of variations in stress levels.

"These differences are huge," said Dr Neville Bruce, a veterinarian-turned-human-biologist who did the research with a young doctor, Anne O'Sullivan.

"We thought family interactions would be significant - most of these kids lived at home, and 20 per cent of them had divorced parents. We thought peer group pressures would be significant. They were not."

The survey measured the students' stress levels through a questionnaire and testing for cortisol, which the body produces under stress. Cortisol directs the body to draw down some muscle protein and build up glucose for energy.

The questionnaire defined people as highly stressed if they said that they often felt irritated or angry about things, felt they were not "on top of things" or felt that they could not control the way they spent their time.

Those with a generally positive outlook ticked statements such as "I feel that I have a great deal to be proud of" and "Every day seems new, exciting and different."

Those with a negative outlook ticked boxes such as "After an embarrassing experience, I worry about it for days" and "I am not as well liked as most people are."

This basic difference in outlook accounted for 29 per cent of stress variations among those in relationships and 52 per cent of the variations among those without current partners.

The survey found that stress levels were surprisingly unrelated to cortisol, except that people in long, stable relationships had slightly lower cortisol levels than others.

Another surprise was that there were no differences between men and women.

Auckland University of Technology student Adam Stevenson, 20, said he thought the pressure of exams was more stressful, but it lasted for only a short period of time, whereas sexual jealously was more constant.

He thought women suffered more from the stress of sexual jealousy because they competed with other women.

"Girls are always checking other chicks out," he said.

Another male AUT student, who did not want to be named, said he thought sexual jealously would always create more stress than exams: "I think most students find worrying about the girl takes priority over worrying about exams."