Stress levels and academic performance in second-year medical students

Abstract

Background: academic stress is one of the problems that mostly affects the physical and mental health of university students, in particular of the medical career. Objective: to establish the descriptive profile of academic stress and determine its relationship with academic performance in the subject Cardiovascular, respiratory, digestive and renal system, in students of the second year of the medical degree of the Branch of Medical Sciences of Puerto Padre, in the University of Medical Sciences of Las Tunas. Methods: an observational, analytical and correlative study was carried out in 71 students declared in the objective. To collect the information, the SISCO SV 21 inventory was used for the study of academic stress, and the teaching records were reviewed to obtain academic results. We analyzed variables, age, sex, academic stress, stressors, symptoms, coping strategies and academic performance. Descriptive and inferential tests were used in the statistical processing. Results: an average level of stress prevailed in the male sex and the high level in the female sex; the stressor predominated, "limited time to do the work"; the most frequent symptom was, "reluctance to do the school work" and as the main copying strategy used, "concentrate on resolving the worrying situation". Students with very high stress levels had the lowest grades. Conclusions: the profile of academic stress was established and its relationship with academic performance was determined in students of the second year of the medical career of Puerto Padre.

Keywords

• estrés psicológico
• salud mental
• rendimiento académico
• educación de pregrado en medicina