GetStarted: an online intervention for procrastination in students: The exploration of stress as mediator between sex and procrastination

Procrastination is a prominent issue in the student population. Procrastination seems to differ between men and women and had multiple causes, but is most often associated with stress. The current study had two aims; 1) examine the effect of the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy based GetStarted programme as intervention for procrastination symptoms, 2) explore the possibility of stress symptoms as a mediator in the relation between sex and procrastination symptoms. For the first aim a pretest-posttest design was used, and for the mediation a cross-sectional study design was used. A total of 424 students (313 women, 111 men) from different universities in the Netherlands participated in the study. The measures in the current study consisted of the Irrational Procrastination Scale (IPS) and the Perceived Stress Scale-10 (PSS-10). This study made use of paired sample t-tests in IBM SPSS and mediation analysis using the PROCESS macro. The results showed a significant decrease in...Show moreProcrastination is a prominent issue in the student population. Procrastination seems to differ between men and women and had multiple causes, but is most often associated with stress. The current study had two aims; 1) examine the effect of the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy based GetStarted programme as intervention for procrastination symptoms, 2) explore the possibility of stress symptoms as a mediator in the relation between sex and procrastination symptoms. For the first aim a pretest-posttest design was used, and for the mediation a cross-sectional study design was used. A total of 424 students (313 women, 111 men) from different universities in the Netherlands participated in the study. The measures in the current study consisted of the Irrational Procrastination Scale (IPS) and the Perceived Stress Scale-10 (PSS-10). This study made use of paired sample t-tests in IBM SPSS and mediation analysis using the PROCESS macro. The results showed a significant decrease in procrastination symptoms between T0 and T1; t(207) = 9.40, p < .01 and between T1 and T2; t(97) = 4.65, p < .01. The mediation analysis showed a significant indirect effect of stress symptoms on the relation between sex and procrastination symptoms (b = -0.58, boot SE = 0.25, CI [-1.08, -1.02]). The findings indicated that GetStarted is an effective intervention for decreasing procrastination symptoms in students. It was also shown that stress has a mediating effect on the relationship between sex and procrastination symptoms. When looking at the limitations of the study, future research is needed to make solid proclamations.Show less

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GetStarted: an online intervention for procrastination in students: The exploration of stress as mediator between sex and procrastination