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Assessing Physiological and Psychological Factors Contributing to Stress among Medical Students: Implications for Health
Background: Physiological responses to stress disturb internal homeostasis, leading to serious health consequences. Medical students experience high stress levels that should be managed promptly to prevent stress-related impacts on students’ health and education. Aim: This study aims to identify the...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9779130/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36554703 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192416822 |
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author | Al-Rouq, Fawzia Al-Otaibi, Alanoud AlSaikhan, Alanoud Al-Essa, Maha Al-Mazidi, Sarah |
author_facet | Al-Rouq, Fawzia Al-Otaibi, Alanoud AlSaikhan, Alanoud Al-Essa, Maha Al-Mazidi, Sarah |
author_sort | Al-Rouq, Fawzia |
collection | PubMed |
description | Background: Physiological responses to stress disturb internal homeostasis, leading to serious health consequences. Medical students experience high stress levels that should be managed promptly to prevent stress-related impacts on students’ health and education. Aim: This study aims to identify the relationship between stress factors, general health, and academic performance. Methods: This study recruited 421 medical students of all academic years. Participants completed an online survey assessing stress levels using a validated 10-item Perceived Stress Scale. Stress was also compared with students’ health and academic performance. Results: We found that 93.6% of our sample experienced moderate to severe stress, and 31% reported increased stress due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Except for internship students, stress significantly decreases as students progress each academic year (p < 0.05). Students with higher GPAs and with comorbidities are more stressed. Comorbidities were primarily reported in students in their final years of education with a 4% lower GPA than healthy students. Although we had three stress-related themes (general, academic, and pandemic), students’ perceptions of stress factors were primarily academically related. Conclusions: Students experience high stress levels in their final educational years, which might increase the risk of health issues and low academic performance. It is essential to innovate stress-coping strategies specially designed for medical students and mandatorily provided by all medical colleges and to educate students on the effects of stress on their health. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9779130 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-97791302022-12-23 Assessing Physiological and Psychological Factors Contributing to Stress among Medical Students: Implications for Health Al-Rouq, Fawzia Al-Otaibi, Alanoud AlSaikhan, Alanoud Al-Essa, Maha Al-Mazidi, Sarah Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Background: Physiological responses to stress disturb internal homeostasis, leading to serious health consequences. Medical students experience high stress levels that should be managed promptly to prevent stress-related impacts on students’ health and education. Aim: This study aims to identify the relationship between stress factors, general health, and academic performance. Methods: This study recruited 421 medical students of all academic years. Participants completed an online survey assessing stress levels using a validated 10-item Perceived Stress Scale. Stress was also compared with students’ health and academic performance. Results: We found that 93.6% of our sample experienced moderate to severe stress, and 31% reported increased stress due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Except for internship students, stress significantly decreases as students progress each academic year (p < 0.05). Students with higher GPAs and with comorbidities are more stressed. Comorbidities were primarily reported in students in their final years of education with a 4% lower GPA than healthy students. Although we had three stress-related themes (general, academic, and pandemic), students’ perceptions of stress factors were primarily academically related. Conclusions: Students experience high stress levels in their final educational years, which might increase the risk of health issues and low academic performance. It is essential to innovate stress-coping strategies specially designed for medical students and mandatorily provided by all medical colleges and to educate students on the effects of stress on their health. MDPI 2022-12-15 /pmc/articles/PMC9779130/ /pubmed/36554703 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192416822 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Al-Rouq, Fawzia Al-Otaibi, Alanoud AlSaikhan, Alanoud Al-Essa, Maha Al-Mazidi, Sarah Assessing Physiological and Psychological Factors Contributing to Stress among Medical Students: Implications for Health |
title | Assessing Physiological and Psychological Factors Contributing to Stress among Medical Students: Implications for Health |
title_full | Assessing Physiological and Psychological Factors Contributing to Stress among Medical Students: Implications for Health |
title_fullStr | Assessing Physiological and Psychological Factors Contributing to Stress among Medical Students: Implications for Health |
title_full_unstemmed | Assessing Physiological and Psychological Factors Contributing to Stress among Medical Students: Implications for Health |
title_short | Assessing Physiological and Psychological Factors Contributing to Stress among Medical Students: Implications for Health |
title_sort | assessing physiological and psychological factors contributing to stress among medical students: implications for health |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9779130/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36554703 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192416822 |
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