TITLE:
The impact of academic stress on medical students attending college in the Inner Mongolia Area of China
AUTHORS:
Jie Chen, Yanyan Wu, He Yi, Zhijun Li, Yuki Eshita, Peng Qin, Lifu Chen, Juan Sun
KEYWORDS:
Academic Stress; Distress; College Students
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Preventive Medicine,
Vol.3 No.2,
April
29,
2013
ABSTRACT:
The aim of this study was to examine whether student characteristics
affect the risk of health conditions, and explore whether the
degree of academic stress affects the level of distress.
We surveyed medical students in the Inner Mongolia Medical College China using
a questionnaire. A logistic regression analysis was used
to ascertain factors associated with distress. The Wilcoxon Mann-Whitney
test was used to determine the relationship between distress and different
academic stress levels. Of the 6044 students completing questionnaires,
47.5% self-reported distressing body symptoms induced by academic stress. Chi
square tests showed statistically significant associations between distress
and gender, academic stress, and residence; feeling academic stress caused a
more than 1.5 times risk of distress. Gender and academic stress were significantly
associated with distress in non-conditional binary logistic regression
models. Compared with male students, female students was more likely to feel
distress. The Wilcoxon Mann-Whitney test also showed that the distress rate
increased with academic stress and a
dose-response relationship between the distress rate and stress level
was found. The present study indicates that it is important to reduce academic
stress and manage it in order that better outcomes be achieved in regard to
distress, especially in females.
