The Prevalence of Stress among Medical Students and Its Effects on Academic Performance in The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Raghad Abdulmueid Mahyuddin(2),Zuhour Mohammed Haneef(2), Bashaer Mahboub Alalwani (1) , Abdulkader Al Juhani(1) , Saja Mohmmmed Fallatah(2) , Sefana Abdulhaleem Abdulmajeid(2),Douaa Alawi Alsaidi(2) ,

The Prevalence of Stress among Medical Students and Its Effects on Academic Performance in The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Bashaer Mahboub Alalwani (1) , Abdulkader Al Juhani(1) , Saja Mohmmmed Fallatah(2) , Sefana Abdulhaleem Abdulmajeid(2),Douaa Alawi Alsaidi(2) , Raghad Abdulmueid Mahyuddin(2),Zuhour Mohammed Haneef(2)

Royal Commission Medical Center (1), Batterjee Medical College (2)

Abstract

Background: A definition of stress is anything that can disturbs the normal individual’s mental or physical wellbeing. Medical school is known to be stressful branch in higher education and requires a lot of effort.
In fact there is an increase in the incidence of stress between medical students. Young students are more liable to develop stress due to the high competitive field of medicine.
Aim of Study: the study is to explore the prevalence of stress among medical students and its effects on their academic performance in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted in under graduate medical students and interns at Faculty of Medicine in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a quota sampling was used. The questionnaire was validated, self - administrated with a Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10) used to conduct the data . Results: In total, of 1900 students and interns , 29.5% were males , 70.1% females .The prevalence of stress among undergraduates 82.1% and interns 17.1%, the prevalence of severe stress was in the undergraduate female 84.6%. According to the results the proportion of female who had stress was higher 70.1%than their counterpart males 29.5%. The prevalence of stress was highest among fourth year students 21.1%, and first year 4.8% showed the lowest .There was a high association between a study year and level of stress p >(0.00) There is high association between studying medicine and developing symptoms of stress( p value 0.001). Most of the 60.6% of the participants developed symptoms related to exposure to stress, most common symptoms were gastrointestinal (67.19%).There is significant association between marriage and stress (p vale 0.19).There is no association between work and stress (p <0.132).There is no association between martial statues and stress (p value<0.386). Conclusion: The main result in this study shows high prevalence of stress among medical students in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia compared to others studies .The Level of stress is more among the female students compared to the male students. The main causes of stress are related to hours of sleep, hours of studying and marriage.

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