The Risk Factors Causing Deleterious Effects on Medical Students and their Mental Health

Abstract

Background: Medical education is always being perceived as a stressful profession and this fact is well established. Due to this stress, not only the worth and value of this sacred profession is compromised but it also deteriorates the mental health and the academic performance of the students. Aim: To identify the risk factors called stressors which are causing deleterious effects on medical students and their mental health and also to quantify the magnitude of these stressors. In the long run, as a teacher, we can address that issues and if possible, can take some steps to rectify them. Material: This is cross sectional descriptive study which was conducted in obstetric/Gynae department of University College of Medicine And Dentistry (UCMD), University Of Lahore. It was a questionnaire based study in which validated Medical Student Stressor Questionnaire (MSSQ) was given to the students to identify the sources of stress in MBBS students of UCMD. Then stress level was calculated against 40 items of this questionnaire, which were divided into six domains. Six Likert scale was used for scoring system. Result: Data from 382 students were analyzed-approximately 70% were female and 30% were male. . Sample size was calculated by WHO sample size calculator where the prevalence of stress were found 46.2% among medical students with 95% of confidence interval and 5% of margin of error, the calculated sample size was (n=382) The academic related stressors and teaching & learning related stressors were found to be major stressors causing moderate to severe stress. ConclusionThe prevalence of stress is high in medical students. High stress is caused by our academic system, syllabus and curriculum as Domain 1 and Domain111 which include our teaching and learning strategies .Domain 11 also causes mild to moderate stress while IV, V and VI cause mild stress in medical students.