Reverse culture shock, distress symptoms and psychological well-being of fresh foreign degree holders in Pakistan

This study explored to what extent does reverse culture shock predict the level of anxiety, depression, and psychological well-being among fresh foreign degree holders in Pakistan, in addition to finding out the relationship between the study variables. Participants consisted of 124 fresh foreign degree holders (109 men and 15 women) who were recruited through purposive and snowball sampling techniques. Reverse Culture Shock Scale, Major Depression Inventory, Beck Anxiety Inventory, and WHO-5 Well-being Index were used to measure study variables. Results show that reverse culture shock is a strong predictor of psychological well-being explaining 23% variance in well-being scores of fresh foreign degree holders. As hypothesized, it has positive associations with distress symptoms including anxiety and depression, whereas, a negative correlation was found with psychological well-being and the age of fresh foreign degree holders. However, contrary to the hypothesis, reverse culture shock has no association with time passed since arrival back home and duration of stay abroad.