A study on stress levels among exam going post graduate medical students of a medical college in Telangana- A cross sectional study

Background: Medicine is considered to be a stressful profession particularly during post graduate years. Stress is also linked to various diseases such as Hypertension and Diabetes etc. Hence, understanding stress is important. Objectives: to study the prevalence of stress among final year post graduate students using a screening instrument and to study the association of stress with certain academic and socio demographic characteristics. Methods: This is a cross sectional study done on all final year post graduate students of all specialties covering both M.D and diploma candidates who are willing to participate in the study. A total of 71 study subjects were chosen. It was conducted in Kamineni Institute of medical sciences, Nalgonda district from 15th August 2013-10th January 2014. Kessler 10-item psychological distress scale (K10), a 10 item questionnaire was used to collect data regarding stress. Results: The mean Kessler score obtained for the study population was 25 with a standard deviation of 6.74. This falls under the category of moderate stress according to Kesslers scoring. No statistically significant association was found between stress and gender, type of specialty, degree/ diploma. Marriage is found to significantly lower stress levels. Conclusion: Study shows that stress among post graduate medical students is high. No statistically significant association was found between stress and gender, type of specialty, degree/ diploma