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Perception of academic stress among Health Science Preparatory Program students in two Saudi universities

The Health Science Preparatory Program (HSPP) is a special program that aims to enhance the educational preparedness of students for participation in a health sciences career. Students spend their first university year in a combined extensive teaching program before they can be assigned to a particu...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Alsulami, Saleh, Al Omar, Zaid, Binnwejim, Mohammed S, Alhamdan, Fahad, Aldrees, Amr, Al-bawardi, Abdulkarim, Alsohim, Meshary, Alhabeeb, Mohammed
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Dove Medical Press 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5856041/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29559816
http://dx.doi.org/10.2147/AMEP.S143151
Descripción
Sumario:The Health Science Preparatory Program (HSPP) is a special program that aims to enhance the educational preparedness of students for participation in a health sciences career. Students spend their first university year in a combined extensive teaching program before they can be assigned to a particular health science specialty. It is thought that students enrolled in a highly competitive environment such as HSPP with a long list of potential stressors, including developmental, academic overload, language barriers and competition, are more disposed to stress and stress-related complications. This study aims to measure the level of academic stress and to determine its risk factors in students enrolled in HSPP-adapted local universities in Saudi Arabia. The study was conducted at two Saudi universities, King Saud University (KSU) and Imam Mohammad ibn Saud Islamic University (IMSU) with competition-based and non-competition-based HSPP learning models, respectively. Both universities adopt the HSPP system. The scale for assessing academic stress (SAAS) was used to assess students’ perceived stress. A total of 290 students successfully completed the questionnaire (N=290), with a mean age of 18.66 years. Mean SAAS scores for KSU and IMSU students were 8.37 (SD = 4.641) and 7.97 (SD = 5.104), P=0.480, respectively. Only “satisfaction” and “associated social and health problems” have shown statistically significant correlation with university (P=0.000 and P=0.049, respectively). This study has found mean SAAS score for two local universities with competition-based versus non-competition-based HSPP learning models. Academic stress correlation with age, gender and universities was discussed, and valuable future work guidance was recommended.