Depression, Anxiety, and Stress among Music Students in Serbia

Abstract

Previous research reported higher levels of depression and anxiety for music students (Wristen, 2013). Psychological distress was more prevalent among musicians than in the workforce, with soloists reporting the highest levels (Vaag et al., 2016). Studies are slim on the symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress, related to playing specific instruments. One paper claims that piano playing reduces stress more than a few other artistic activities (Toyoshima et al., 2011). This work aimed to compare certain groups based on their depression, anxiety, and stress levels. The differences were analyzed between (1) music and other faculties’ students; (2) theoretically and practically oriented musicians; (3) piano, strings, and wind instruments players selected from the practitioners’ group. The initial sample consisted of 364 students (81.3% female) aged 18-30, of which 120 were studying music. 68.3% of them were instrumentalists, and some were selected for betweengroup analysis: 29 piano, 18 string, and 15 wind instruments (including solo singers) players. The DASS-SER (Likert, 1-4) scale was used for depression, anxiety, and stress measures. Oneway ANOVA was used, with Bonferroni post-hoc test. The levels of depression (M = 1.76, SD = .74), anxiety (M = 1.77, SD = .68), and stress (M = 2.29, SD = .69) among musicians were clinically insignificant. Although music students had slightly higher scores, no differences from other students were found. Analysis showed that practitioners experienced lower amounts of anxiety (F(1) = 5.18, p = .025) and depression (F(1) = 4.09, p = .045) than theorists. Significant differences between three groups of instrumentalists were found for each depression (F(2) = 6.59, p = .003), anxiety (F(2) = 4.24, p = .019), and stress (F(2) = 6.69, p = .002). Post-hoc test showed that string-players score higher on depression (p = .003), anxiety (p = .017), and stress (p = .003) than pianists, and higher on depression (p = .030) than wind instrumentalists. Following previous research, this study suggests that music students experience no more depression, anxiety, or stress than other faculties’ students. The result that theoretically oriented musicians seem more anxious and depressed than instrumentalists has no theoretical support so far. Underpinned by existing theory to some extent, piano players have slightly better scores on these variables. Nevertheless, this study has not accounted for situational variables, such as the pandemic and rapports with professors. Since there are no well-founded theoretical assumptions, these variables probably explain the results. Therefore, the peculiarities of piano players’ more positive scores, more melancholic tendencies of string instrumentalists and difficulties experienced by theoretically oriented musicians need further exploration and a larger sample.