Abstract:

Background; Medical school is recognized as a stressful environment that often exerts a negative effect on the academic performance, physical health and psychological wellbeing of the students. a study among undergraduate medical students in the united states of America found that 23% had clinical depression and 57% were under psychological stress is often reported in students during examinations when students are prepared for continuous assessment and clinical examinations. Medical students are expected to master a large number of knowledge and skills. The sacrifice students have to make in order to maintain the good academic results in a highly competitive environment put them under stress.

Objectives; the study assessed the prevalence psychological stress among undergraduate students at Catholic University of Health and Allied Science, identifying symptoms of psychological stress and determining the association of symptoms of psychological stress with depression.

Methodology; This was the cross-sectional study design conducted from June to august 2021.A proportionate Stratified Random Sampling was used to collect information from those who met the criteria to be included in the study. A total of 267 participants was enrolled. Data was collected with self-administered questionnaires and analyzed using IBM SPSS software. Data analysis described all study variables using proportions, frequencies and percentages. The association of psychological stress symptoms and categorical variables such as gender, age and the course of study will be established by using chi-squared test. All analysis based at 5% level of significance.

Results; prevalence of psychological stress was 34.5 %, it was high in female (75%) compared to male (25%), the symptoms of psychological stress were identified and majority of symptoms were loss of sleep over worry (33.3%) and constant under strain (28.4%). And all symptoms psychological stress were significantly associated with depression.

Conclusion; the prevalence of psychological stress among medical students was low in this study. Psychological stress was also significantly associated with depression. By identifying its symptoms and association with depression, hopefully these conditions among medical students can be identified at an early stage to prevent psychological morbidity among our medical students and young doctors.