Perceived academic demands and psychological distress among Chinese university students: structural associations involving chronic time pressure and leisure-time physical activity.
Gong Z, Shen G, Zhou Z • Frontiers in public health • 2026
In 1,390 Chinese undergraduates, perceived academic demands were associated with psychological distress directly and indirectly through chronic time pressure, whereas the serial indirect association additionally involving leisure-time physical activity was minimal; cross-sectional data cannot establish temporal mediation or causal direction.
Key Findings
Results
The adjusted structural equation model linking perceived academic demands, chronic time pressure, leisure-time physical activity, and psychological distress showed good fit.
Fit indices were CFI = 0.966, TLI = 0.959, RMSEA = 0.034, SRMR = 0.024.
Sample was 1,390 undergraduates from 10 higher-education institutions in Jiangsu Province, China, via cross-sectional online survey.
Academic demands, chronic time pressure, and distress were latent variables; log-transformed leisure-time physical activity was an observed variable; covariates were adjusted.
Results
Perceived academic demands were positively associated with both chronic time pressure and psychological distress.
Academic demands to chronic time pressure: β = 0.539.
Academic demands to psychological distress (direct path): β = 0.382.
All reported paths were significant at p < 0.001.
Results
Chronic time pressure was positively associated with psychological distress and negatively associated with leisure-time physical activity.
Chronic time pressure to distress: β = 0.334.
Chronic time pressure to leisure-time physical activity: β = -0.179.
Both paths p < 0.001.
Results
Leisure-time physical activity was negatively associated with psychological distress, with a small effect size.
This coefficient is smaller than the paths from academic demands (0.382) and chronic time pressure (0.334) to distress.
Results
The specific indirect association from academic demands to distress through chronic time pressure was substantial.
Specific indirect association B = 0.182, 95% bias-corrected CI [0.134, 0.236].
Estimated with 5,000 bootstrap resamples with bias-corrected 95% confidence intervals.
Results
The serial indirect association through chronic time pressure and then leisure-time physical activity was considerably smaller.
Serial specific indirect association B = 0.010, 95% bias-corrected CI [0.005, 0.018].
The authors state that leisure-time physical activity made only a minimal additional contribution within the concurrent structural model.
Conclusions
The authors identify chronic time pressure as a relevant correlate of student distress and support further investigation of academic time organization alongside opportunities for physical activity.
The indirect path via chronic time pressure was substantially larger than the serial path including physical activity.
Because data were cross-sectional, temporal mediation and causal direction cannot be established.
What This Means
This study surveyed 1,390 undergraduates at 10 universities in Jiangsu Province, China, about how demanding they found their academic work, how chronically short of time they felt, how much leisure-time exercise they did, and their psychological distress. Students who perceived heavier academic demands reported more distress, both directly and through feeling constantly short of time.
Feeling chronically time-pressured was linked to more distress and to less leisure-time physical activity. More physical activity was linked to somewhat lower distress, but the link was small. The pathway running from academic demands through time pressure to distress was much larger than the pathway that also went through reduced physical activity, so exercise added only a minimal additional contribution in this model.
This research suggests that how students' academic time is organized may be an important factor to examine alongside opportunities for physical activity. However, because all data were collected at a single point in time, the study cannot show that academic demands or time pressure cause distress, or establish the order in which these things happen.
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Gong Z, Shen G, Zhou Z. (2026). Perceived academic demands and psychological distress among Chinese university students: structural associations involving chronic time pressure and leisure-time physical activity.. Frontiers in public health. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2026.1984531