Sources of stress among first-year medical students

Background: The extremely demanding environment of medical education puts medical students under tremendous pressure. During the initial years of training, causes of stress are mainly related to academic and emotional factors, while in later years patient care and physical factors are more remarkable. Objectives: The current study was conducted with an aim to find out the major sources of stress among 1st year medical students. Materials and Methods: This questionnaire-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 1st year students of Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences Medical College, Srinagar for a period of 3 months. Medical student stressor questionnaire which has good psychometric properties was used to evaluate the major stressors. The questionnaire has 40 items representing the six stressor domains, each based on a common underlying theme. Results: Academic related stressors were identified as a source of stress by nearly two-thirds of the students (63.95%) followed by teaching and learning related stressors (43.02%) and inter/intra-personal related stressors (32.55%). Conclusion: Our study found a high prevalence of stress among 1st year medical students and academic related stressors were identified as the major contributors of overall stress.