Evaluation of psychophysical stress and prevalence of tiredness symptoms in private secondary school students

: The study was carried out on 603 students (330 girls and 273 boys) from secondary private schools in several province capitals. Among them 321 were in the first classes and 282 in the second classes. The purpose of the study was an assessment of the psychophysical stress experienced by these students and the prevalence of tiredness symptoms among them. Psychophysical stress was assessed by means of a questionnaire containing questions grouped so that it could be possible to determined the stress connected with learning at school, work beyond the lessons, timetable of work, situation in class and family, and the general wellbeing. The answers to all questions were given point scores. The total score as a sum of these points provided information about the total psychophysical stress. On the other hand, the answers to certain questions described the objective stressful situations to which the student was exposed, and his/her subjective experiencing of the troublesomeness of these stresses. The prevalence of subjective experience of tiredness was studied by means of a questionnaire in which the answers received points from 0 to 4. The results of the study made possible the following conclusions. The magnitude of the total psychophysical stress of girls in the first and second classes was greater than that of boys.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)