Homesickness in social context: An ecological momentary assessment study among 1st‐year university students

Homesickness is common among university students and associated with mental health problems. Most previous studies assessed homesickness as a summary of the past weeks. However, there may be significant fluctuations across situations. At the current residence, homesickness may especially be triggere...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inInternational journal of psychology Vol. 55; no. 3; pp. 392 - 397
Main Authors Nauta, Maaike H., Rot, Marije, Schut, Henk, Stroebe, Margaret
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford, UK John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 01.06.2020
Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
Subjects
Acculturation
Attachment
Brief Research Report
Brief Research Reports
College students
Ecological momentary assessment
Emotions
Foreign students
Health problems
Homesickness
Mental disorders
Mental health
Positive and negative effect
Residence
Social environment
Social interaction
Social interactions
University students
Unpleasant
Ecological momentary assessment
Acculturation
Social interactions
Homesickness
Positive and negative effect
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Summary:Homesickness is common among university students and associated with mental health problems. Most previous studies assessed homesickness as a summary of the past weeks. However, there may be significant fluctuations across situations. At the current residence, homesickness may especially be triggered during (phone) interactions with attachment figures. Dutch and international 1st‐year students (n = 92) completed the Utrecht Homesickness Scale and subsequently used a smartphone application to record social interactions for 14 days (ecological momentary assessment [EMA]). For each interaction they reported the social context (e.g. location, contact type) and their affective state, including homesickness. Homesickness in the past weeks and momentary homesickness were both higher in international students than in Dutch students. Feeling homesick was highest at participants' current residency, when interacting with parents, or when using video‐chat. When participants felt more homesick, they reported less pleasant and more unpleasant affect. In conclusion, EMA provided insight in cross‐situational variations in homesickness.
Bibliography:The presented idea was conceived by all authors, while MahR made the study design with the ecological momentary assessments. Data collection was performed by students supervised by MahR. MahR conducted the data analysis. Interpretation of data was carried out by all authors. MHN drafted the first version of the Introduction and Discussion section of the manuscript, MahR wrote the draft of the Methods and Results sections. All authors then contributed to the current content of the manuscript and all authors approved of the final manuscript.
The authors thank Renske Bosman, Minita Franzen, Sophie Lammertink, Jana Uppendahl and Lenka Wichmann for assistance.
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ISSN:0020-7594
1464-066X
DOI:10.1002/ijop.12586