PERCEIVED STRESS AND COPING MECHANISM AMONG MEDICAL STUDENTS OF UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN, NIGERIA

Abstract

Stress is a major health-related problem among medical students which can either be a subconscious vexing concern or a state of conscious urge. It is an emotionally unstable state that hinders one's ability to focus and function effectively on a routine basis. There is dearth of information about perceived stress and coping mechanism among medical students in South west Nigeria. Therefore, this study was set to investigate perceived stress and coping mechanism among medical students in University of Ibadan. The study was a cross-sectional study using a-three stage sampling technique. All the 399 respondents in both preclinical and clinical stages in University of Ibadan who consented to participate were recruited into the study. A semi-structured, self-administered questionnaire was used for data collection which elicited information on socio-demographic characteristics, types of stress, prevalence and causes of stress among medical students, perception of medical students towards stress, factors contributing to stress and their coping mechanisms. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics at p≤0.05. Respondents’ age was 20.9±3.1 years, 63.2% were male and 85.7% were Christians. Majority (97.7%) were single. The two stages took part in the study, 67.2% were from clinical while 32.8% were from preclinical. Acute stress (94.0%) was high among medical student followed by episodic stress (87.7%). Academic stressor (96.7%) was the most type of stressor common among medical students. The prevalence of stress was high among the respondents. Majority of the respondents (94.2%) have been stressed as a medical student before. The factors contributing to stress were academic (86.0%), financial (65.4%), health related (58.6%) and the least was social factor (29.6%). Majority of the respondents (93.0%) indicated that stress could be minimized by the University management. Ways to minimize stress by University management include: creating good environment (90.5%), student friendly time table (90.5%) and good hostel condition (91.0%). It was also stated that student can help minimize stress, (96.5%) agreed to this statement and some ways of minimizing stress by students were indicated: self encouragement (95.0%), understanding one’s learning styles (94.7%) and engaging in recreational activities (92.0%). Majority (63.4%) believed students should know what works for them, (31.0%) mentioned adoption of planning and time management while (5.6%) believed getting closed to loved ones could reduce stress. There was a significant relationship between medical student’s stage (preclinical and clinical) and ever stress before as a medical student where p ≤ 0.05.It has been perceived that stress was common among medical students and different coping mechanisms were stated on how stress could be relieved. There is the need for University management to devise measures to identify stress among medical students as an ongoing activity and develop strategies to deal with it at the individual level during medical education. Time management and understanding individual learning style are therefore recommended to minimize the effects of stress on the medical students.