Stress level among the final year medical students at an urban medical college: A cross-sectional study

Introduction and Aim: Stress is a condition which is perceived through environmental threats and events and is initiated by stressors. Globally there is a high prevalence of stress among the medical students which impacts the cognitive and learning ability of medical students and also their mental wellbeing. The present study was conducted to identify the stressors and measure the intensity of the stress among final year medical students at AnurbanMedical College in Chennai.   Methods:This cross-sectional studywas conducted among 250 final year undergraduate medical students between JulyandSeptember 2018. The students were exposed to medical student stressor questionnaire (MSSQ-20), consisting of six domains including academic related stressors (ARS), teaching related stressors (TLRS), intrapersonal and interpersonal development stressors (IRS), social related stressors (SRS), desire related stressors (DRS) and group activities related stressors (GARS).The stress levelswere graded as mild, moderate, high and severe.   Results: Majority of the participantswere females(56%) and the mean age was 22.17± 0.94 years. MSSQ-20 analysis showed that 138 (55%) students perceived severe stress due to ARS and 85(34%) students were prone to high stress as a result of GARS. The mean score was higher for ARS, followed by GARS and the least score was observed in DRS.   Conclusion: Since academics and group activities are the most dominant stressors, there is a need for restructuring the medical education delivery system to enable the medical students acquires knowledge without compromising their health and wellbeing.