Stress and its correlates among medical students in six medical colleges: an attempt to understand the current situation

• Published in: Middle East Current Psychiatry Vol. 28; no. 1; pp. 1 - 10
• Main Authors: Ragab, Esraa Ahmed, Dafallah, Mumen Abdalazim, Salih, Mahmoud Hussien, Osman, Wail Nuri, Osman, Mugtaba, Miskeen, Elhadi, Taha, Mohamed H., Ramadan, Azza, Ahmed, Musaab, Abdalla, Mohamed Elhassan, Ahmed, Mohamed H.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 10.12.2021; Springer; Springer Nature B.V; SpringerOpen
• Subjects: Academic achievement; Analysis; Anxiety; Chi-square test; College students; Colleges & universities; Coping; Core curriculum; Demographics; Ethics; Females; Gender; Learning; Males; Medical colleges; Medical education; Medical schools; Medical students; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Psychiatry; Questionnaires; Stress; Stress (Psychology); Sudan; Surveys; Teaching; Saudi Arabia; Sudan; United Arab Emirates; Medical students; Medical education; Stress; Sudan
• DOI: 10.1186/s43045-021-00158-w
• ISSN: 2090-5416; 2090-5408

Background Medical students encounter various stressors during their studies. The study aimed to assess stress levels, sources, and associated determinants among Sudanese medical students. Method An online questionnaire-based study was conducted among 617 undergraduate medical students of 6 different universities in Sudan. A 19-item questionnaire was utilized to assess stress sources, in addition to demographics, stress manifestations, and coping strategies. Results The overall prevalence of stress was 31.7% ( p  < 0.05). The main sources of stress were time pressure, heavy workload, fear of failure, and examination frequency. One-third of students indicated that they experienced at least one source of psychosocial- and teaching-related stress. Female medical students were more significantly stressed due to academics than males. Also, fourth- and fifth-year students were academically more stressed in comparison to the first-year students. Poisson regression analysis model showed that first-year students were less stressed than the final-year students in relation to academics (odds = 0.888, P  = 0.003). Male medical students, across all study years, were far less stressed than females (odds = 0.901, P  = 0.000153). Expectedly, ‘studying medicine by choice’ was associated with decreased odds for psychosocial stressors (odds = 0.885, P  = 0.00781), and improved model-fit (chi-squared = 6.8952, P  = 0.008643). Also, the year of study was a predictor of teaching-related stress development. Conclusions Female medical students were more stressed due to academics than males. On the other hand, final-year students were more academically stressed than first-year students. Female medical students were likely having stress related to academic stress development, while being first-year medical student was a predictor of not developing academic stress. Studying medicine by choice’ was associated with ability to cope against stress.