Prevalence and sources of stress among postgraduate medical trainees: initial findings

ABSTRACT

Objective: Postgraduate medical training has always been regarded as a highly stressful environment to students. This article described an initial finding on prevalence and sources of stress among postgraduate students. Method: This is a cross-sectional study conducted on postgraduate students in the School of Medical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia. Sample size as calculated for this preliminary study was 38 and convenient sampling method was applied. The 12 items General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) and Postgraduate Stressors Questionnaire (PSQ) were administered during a workshop involving postgraduate students. Data was analysed using SPSS version 12. Results: Thirty three participants participated in this study. This study found that the prevalence of distressed postgraduate students was 36.4%. The top ten stressors were tests and examinations, large amount of content to be learnt, time pressure to meet deadlines, doing work beyond ability, work overload, unfair assessment by superior, fears of making mistakes that can lead to serious consequences, doing work that mentally straining, work demands affect my personal and home life, and lack of time to review what have been learnt. Conclusion: This study found that there was a high prevalence of distressed postgraduate students. It also found that the Introduction Postgraduate medical training environment has always been regarded as highly stressful to students. The stressors of medical training and its associated negative consequences to the mental, emotional and physical health, particularly for undergraduate medical students, have been described in many studies [1-10], however, for postgraduate students there is very limited data on this. It is noteworthy that generally excessive and ASEAN Journal of Psychiatry, Vol.11 (2) July – December 2010 major stressors were related to academic and performance pressure