The potential of adventure tourism as a means of preventing stress-related states in students during wartime

Abstract

Purpose. To assess the effectiveness of using adventure tourism for the prevention of stress-related states in students during wartime.

Materials and methods. The study involved 30 students who took part in short-term adventure programs organized during wartime (October 10-26, 2023 and May 22-28, 2024) in Ukraine. The age of the participants was 22.0 (20.0; 31.0) years. Of these, 73.3% were male and the rest were females. 73.3% lived in Kyiv and Kyiv region, the rest were from Lviv, Dnipro, and Khmelnytskyi. 66.7 % indicated that they had no negative experience of being directly in the area of active hostilities. A sample of 194 students from the main group of 1901 students who took part in the study during the same period as the participants of the adventure program was used as a comparison group. Inclusion criteria: studying in a higher education institution in Ukraine; motivation to participate in a short-term adventure program; voluntary consent to participate in the study; and medical clearance. The study used a short version of the questionnaire ‘Reaction of Ukrainian students to hostilities in the country’ that was developed using Google Forms at the National University of Physical Education and Sports of Ukraine supplemented by the question “How did participation in the adventure program affect your condition? In addition to a block of demographic information questions, the questionnaire included blocks of questions aimed at determining psychophysiological indicators (activity, mood, sleep, appetite, performance, and well-being; measured with the 5-point Likert scale from 1 (very poor) to 5 (very good); Cronbach’s alpha – 0.837); factors that can enhance or mitigate the impact of military stress (gender: male – 1 and female – 0; participation in the adventure program – Yes, comparison group – No; measured with a categorical scale); stress assessment by V. Y. Shcherbatykh (measured with a ratio scale); anxiety scores were assessed using the Spielberg-Hanin Inventory and the risk of PTSD was assessed using the Mississippi Scale (measured with an ordinal scale).

Results. The study analyzed the impact of short-term adventure programs on reducing stress, anxiety, and the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in students during wartime. Using GLM modeling, it was found that participation in the program is a statistically significant predictor of an increase in all three indicators (p<0.05). At first glance, this seems to contradict the intuitive expectation of effects from such a program. However, when gender was taken into account, the opposite trend was observed: unlike female students, in male students, participation in the program was associated with a significant reduction in stress, anxiety, and the risk of PTSD. The program had a particularly significant impact on reducing the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder: the reduction was 1.35 standard deviations.

Conclusions. This study is one of the first to examine the impact of adventure tourism on students’ mental health during wartime and makes a new contribution to understanding the mechanisms of influence of extreme physical activities on stress-related states in higher education students. Significant gender differences in the impact of short-term adventure programs were found: while male students showed a significant reduction in stress, anxiety, and risk of PTSD, female students, on the contrary, had higher scores of stress-related states. The results of the study demonstrate that participation in the program had the greatest impact on reducing the risk of developing PTSD in male students, which emphasizes its potential as an effective preventive intervention. The data obtained can act as a starting point for further research on gender differences in reactions to military stress and extreme types of PA, as well as their impact on stress-related states in higher education students