Stress levels and the factors associated with perceived stress among medical students

Abstract

Introduction: The life of a medical student is stressful due to a variety of known and modifiable factors that tend to affect their academic output. Identification and amelioration of these stressors would go a long way to improve medical education.

Objective: To assess stress levels and factors associated with perceived stress among medical students.

Materials & Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted from March 2022 to June 2022 on 409 randomly selected preclinical and clinical students of different medical colleges of Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan. A structured questionnaire was used for data collection about socio-demographic characteristics and potential risk factors (personal, environmental, academic) related to stress. The Kessler Psychological Distress Instrument (K10) was used for assessment of perceived stress levels.  Data analysis was done with SPSS version 21 for descriptive statistics.

Results: Most students were of the age group of 18-20 years (46.7%) with 55.3% males and 44.7% females.  Majority of students (59.2%) students were day scholars with 40.8% resident in hostels. According to K10 scale, 7.8% students were normal, 49.6% had mild stress, and 32.1% had moderate stress. Severe stress was present in 10.5% of medical students. Levels of stress were positively associated with Academic, Psychosocial, Environmental, and Health Related stressors.

Conclusion: Medical students of the selected colleges in Faisalabad suffered considerable levels of stress related to a number of modifiable factors that affected their academic performance.