ACADEMIC STRESS AMONG MEDICAL STUDENTS DURING THE PANDEMIC OF COVID-19 IN PAKISTAN
Abstract
Background and objective: In Pakistan the first case of COVID-19 was reported on 26th February it led towards the closure of educational institutions on 14th March and at that time medical education also got transitioned regarding content of basic health sciences, behavioral sciences and clinical health sciences along with other educational institutions as this online transition got started with less infrastructure. As medical students are more convenient in physical interactive sessions of study. This study aimed to find the perception of academic stress among medical students in COVID-19 pandemic.
Study Design: Cross-sectional study Setting: This study was conducted in June 2020 by online survey using non-probability convenient type of sampling.
Methodology: In this study, 385 medical and dental students of the age (16-31years) from both Private and public sector medical colleges, after providing informed consent participants completed this online survey. Perception of academic stress was accessed by using pre-tested questionnaire of the Perception of Academic Stress Scale. Five-point Likert scale was used for the responses on items. Data analysis was performed by using SPSS. Data was presented in frequency and percentages. Chi-square test was used for comparison.P-value less than 0.05 was taken as significant
Results: The results showed that 120(31.2%) students were found confident regarding their future and almost same number of students were also stressed out regarding their studies in pandemic of COVID-19 as 118(30.6%) students strongly agreed with this statement. There were significantly higher number of female students106(32.2%) who feel this pandemic stressed them out regarding studies as compare to male students12(21.4%)(0.009).
Conclusion: We found that students were not satisfied with this setup and got frustrated in COVID-19 pandemic because of the disruption of their studies.
Keywords:
Academic stress, COVID-19 pandemic, Medical students, Online classes.
