Academic stress in undergraduate medical students

Abstract

Stress is a natural and essential form of protection for the survival of the human species. Students in the university stage of health sciences who are immersed in this condition present low academic performance, will not be able to acquire the necessary medical knowledge and in the future, their medical skills will not be adequately developed. The objective of this work is to analyze the stress profile of medical-surgeon students at the beginning and end of the first semester. A descriptive, cross-sectional and analytical study was followed. The instrument used was the Stress Profile developed by Nowack and applied to 132 medical students of the School of Medicine of the Autonomous University of Tamaulipas in Tampico. The results show that the most affected areas are exercise, rest/sleep, food/nutrition and prevention, type A behavior, and threat minimization. It is concluded that students do not focus on practices to maintain good health during their academic life.