Level of stress and its contributing factors among first year medical students

• Author Details:   
• Kirti Sharma
• Naresh Kumar
• Anuradha Iyer
• Sibadatta Das

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Background: Stress in medical students is a well documented fact that cannot be denied and more or less it is system oriented. Through a minimal amount of stress is essential to ignite a healthy and competitive spirit, but stress above that minimally accepted amount may hinder the overall growth of students; personal or professional.
Objective: The present study was designed to find out the level of stress among the first year MBBS students and factors associated with stress.
Material and Method: A cross sectional study was designed using Kessler K10 questionnaire to evaluate stress level among first year MBBS students. 100 Students from a newly started government medical college in north India region participated in the study.
Statistical Analysis: Microsoft excel 2007 software was used for analyzing data.
Results: The response rate of study was 84% e.g. 84 students out of 100 returned back the filled K 10 questionnaire. Prevalence of mild, moderate and severe stress was 39.28%, 21.43% and 3.57% respectively. Out of this 35.71% of the study group was not under stress.
Conclusion: The prevalence of stress is high in the study group. The major stressors among first year medical students were high expectation form parental side, huge syllabus, frequency of part completion tests, performance in examination, lack of sleep, low confidence level and lack of emotional and social support. Our study emphasize on early intervention to cope up stress in medical education system. Counseling sessions for students and arrangement of mentorship for them are demand of today.

Keywords: Medical students, Stress, Stressors, Medical education