Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened the psychological and social stress levels of university students due to physical illness, enhanced dependence on mobile devices and internet, a lack of social activities, and home confinement. Therefore, early stress detection is crucial for their successful academic performance and mental well-being. The advent of machine learning (ML)-based prediction models can have a crucial impact in predicting stress at its early stages and taking necessary steps for the well-being of individuals. This study aims to develop a reliable machine learning-based prediction model for perceived stress prediction and validate the model using real-world data collected through an online survey among 444 university students from different ethnicity. The machine learning models were built using supervised machine learning algorithms. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and the chi-squared test were employed as feature reduction techniques. Moreover, Grid Search Cross-Validation (GSCV) and Genetic Algorithm (GA) were employed for hyperparameter optimization (HPO). According to the findings, around 11.26% of individuals were identified with high levels of social stress. In comparison, approximately 24.10% of people were found to be suffering from extremely high psychological stress, which is quite alarming for students' mental health. Furthermore, the prediction results of the ML models demonstrated the most remarkable accuracy (80.5%), precision (1.000), F1 score (0.890), and recall value (0.826). The Multilayer Perceptron model was shown to have the maximum accuracy when combined with PCA as a feature reduction approach and GSCV for HPO. The convenience sampling technique used in this study only considers self-reported data, which may have biased results and lack generalizability. Future research should consider a large sample of data and focus on tracking long-term impacts with coping strategies and interventions. The results of this study can be used to develop strategies to mitigate adverse effects of the overuse of mobile devices and promote student well-being during pandemics and other stressful situations.