ASSESSING SOURCES OF STRESS AND COPING STRATEGIES AMONG AL-GHAD COLLEGE STUDENTS-ABHA/KSA

Abstract

Background: Medical education can be highly stressful and students may face the same sources of stress and many challenges that could affect their performance and well-being. This study aimed to assess stressors as perceived by applied health sciences students and their coping strategies at Al-Ghad colleges.                                                    

Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted during April-May 2019. The subjects of the study consisted of 123 undergraduate, who were selected by convenient sampling. Two tools were used to collect data, University Student Stress (USS) scale a 22-item questionnaire to assess stress, and COPE inventory scale to measure the relative helpfulness of various coping strategies.

Result: The main results revealed that the prevalence of predictive significant psychological distress (>=13) among Al-Ghad college students was found to be 90.2 %. The highest mean score of 38.00 + 12.93 was observed among female students with a significant difference between both genders.   The top four stressors in the participants were: studying for examination, thinking about future, financial expenses, and waiting for results/grades. The least common stressor reported by participants was transportation. The top four coping strategies adopted by participants were: religious coping, positive reinterpretation and growth, planning, and active coping while substance use was the least coping strategy.

Conclusion: Al-Ghad college students do experience multiple types of bio-psychosocial stressors which affect their health and academic performance and use some helpful coping strategies. Exam schedules and patterns, intervention programs, self-awareness and counselling could certainly help a lot to reduce stress in applied health sciences students.

Keywords: Al-Ghad college students, coping strategies, stress, stressors, Kingdom Saudi Arabia (KSA).