Abstract
The present study mainly aimed to examine differences in international students ’mental health according to nationality and Japanese language skills in order to provide suggestions for improving student support systems in Japanese higher education. A total of 76 international students and 6 Japanese students (mean age = 25.4, women = 34.2%) from a Japanese university completed the Kessler 6 (K6) as a part of their regular health assessments and agreed to the use of their data for research purposes. According to the results of ANCOVA controlling for sex, age, and financial condition and subsequent analyses, K6 scores of international students from Southeast Asia and South Asia were higher than those observed in interna- tional students from East Asia. Moreover, ANCOVA results for international students only controlling for sex, age, financial condition, length of stay in Japan, and Japanese language skills showed that K6 scores were higher in students from South Asia than in those from East Asia. University staff should take these differences into consideration to improve student support.
