Determinants of perceived stress in health professional students during the COVID-19 pandemic

Objective: There is not enough information in the literature about perceived stress among health professional students during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aimed to determine the level of perceived stress and its determinants in Turkish undergraduate health professional students during the pandemic. Methods: This cross-sectional, online survey study included 402 undergraduate health professional students. Data were collected using a personal information form, the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), the Contentment with Life Assessment Scale, and the Ways of Coping Inventory. Descriptive statistics, Mann-Whitney U test, Student's t-test, one-way analysis of variance, correlation coefficients, and linear regression analysis were used for data analysis. Results: The PSS mean score of the students was 32.95 +/- 7.34, and 98.2% reported moderate-to-high levels of stress. The significant determinants of stress were younger age (unstandardized beta = -0.23, p = 0.035), poor self-rated health (unstandardized beta = 1.60, p = 0.005), the presence of sleep problems (unstandardized beta = 1.22, p = 0.021), the history of direct contact with suspected COVID-19 patients or infected materials (unstandardized beta = 5.82, p < 0.001), following the news about the pandemic closely (unstandardized beta = 0.60, p = 0.041), lower life satisfaction (unstandardized beta = -0.32, p < 0.001), and lower use of optimistic coping (unstandardized beta = -3.24, p < 0.001) but greater use of helpless coping (unstandardized beta = 3.31, p < 0.001). The regression model explained 57.6% of the variance in perceived stress. Conclusions: The level of perceived stress was relatively high among health professional students. This study highlighted the need for psychological support to reduce the level of perceived stress in this population during the COVID-19 pandemic.