Perceived stress and sources of stress among medical undergraduates in a private medical college in Mangalore, India.

Background: Stress and emotional disturbances among students at medical colleges are relatively common, and seemingly, this is a worldwide problem. Recently studies have reported high levels of stress among medical students. Objectives: To assess prevalence of perceived stress and find out sources of stress among undergraduate medical students. Materials and Methods: Cross-sectional study was conducted in a private medical college in Mangalore during March-August 2012. Data was collected with the help of self-administered questionnaire using “Perceived stress scale (PSS 14)”. Academic, health related and psychological stressors were assessed using a questionnaire containing 33 items. Logistic regression analysis was done to find out determinants of stressed cases. Results: Total 200 students completed the questionnaire. Overall prevalence of stress among study participants was found to be 42.5% (85 students out of 200). Female students reported higher prevalence of stress than males. Mean PSS score in the study population was 27.53 (95% CI: 26.4-28.7, SD = 7.01). Frequency of examination, performance in examination, academic curriculum were reported as important academic stressors. High parental expectations, lack of entertainment in the institution and quality of food in mess were reported as important psycho-social stressors by the students. Conclusion: High levels of perceived stress existed in the first and second year undergraduate medical students. The associations between stressed cases and occurrence of academic and psychosocial stressors needs to be further tested by prospective studies.Keywords: perceived stress, sources of stress, undergraduate medical students