Stress among Early and Late Entrants in Medical Education

This study has been designed to find out stress in early and late entrants in medical education and also age and gender interaction effect on stressor. The study was conducted on 1200 first year medical students ten randomly selected medical colleges of North Indian states of India. Stress of medical students was measured in terms of various stressors. Medical Student Stressor Questionnaire (MSSQ) developed by Muhamad S. B. Yusoff, Ahmad F. A. Rahim and Mohd J. Yaacob was used to identify six domains of stressor including – Academic related stressors (ARS), Intrapersonal and interpersonal related stressors (IRS), Teaching and learning-related stressors (TLRS), Social related stressors (SRS), Drive and desire related stressors (DRS) and Group activities related stressors (GARS). Data were collected in person with each respondent. Means, Standard deviations for each domain were calculated separately for boys and girls and age groups and F test was used to find out the main effects and the interaction effects for each domain of stress. Significant interaction effects were found in all the domains of stressor except two ARS and IRS among groups. Our brief survey suggests that there are substantial differences expressed by these older students in regard to stressor prevalence. Current study demonstrated that early entrant boys and late entrant girls feel more academic related stress. For all other domains early entrants were having more stress than were their younger counterparts. The findings can help understand harms and stresses in early and late entrants in medical education and prepare intervention and guidance programmes for new medical entrants to beat stress and healthier amendment.