A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY ON THE SOURCES AND LEVELS OF STRESS AMONG SECOND YEAR UNDERGRADUATE MEDICAL STUDENTS

Abstract

Background: Stress is common in medical students. Medical school is recognized as a stressful environment that often exerts a negative effect on the academic performance, physical health and psychological wellbeing of the students. Very few studies documenting the sources and levels of stress has been done in Indian medical students.

Objectives: The current study was undertaken to assess the levels & sources of stress among second year undergraduate medical students.

Methods: We did a cross-sectional study using Medical Student Stressor Questionnaire (MSSQ) to estimate the sources, levels of stress & compared the stress levels between female and male undergraduate medical students. Totally 69 students participated in the study out of which 41 were females & 28 were males.

Results: Upon analysis, the Academic Related Stress (2.26), Intrapersonal & interpersonal related stress levels (2.03) was high among the second year undergraduate students. So Academic Related & Intrapersonal & interpersonal related were the major sources of stress among the students followed by Group activities related stress (1.87), Social related stress (1.82), Teaching and learning related stress (1.55) and Drive and desire related stress (1.43) in that order, in all of whom the stress levels was mild.

Conclusion: The current study revealed the levels & sources of stress among second year undergraduate medical students. It also indicated that academic problems were the main sources of stress compared to non-academic problems. Females had comparatively more stress levels than their male counterparts.