Evaluating Stress in Undergraduate Allied Health Science Students at a University in Ghana
Abstract
Background: High sources of stress have been reported in health-care students. Professional education can be a stressful experience for some individuals and may impact negatively on emotional well-being and academic performance. However, there is a dearth of literature in Ghana concerning this field. This study set out to assess the sources and levels of stress faced by undergraduate allied health science students at University of Ghana in Ghana Methodology: We set out to carry out a cross sectional study at the School of Biomedical and Allied Health Sciences, and our sample included 304 Allied Health Science students. The Undergraduate Sources of Stress questionnaire was administered to Allied Health students in all years of available undergraduate courses of the School. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 20.0 utilizing Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis test. Results: Academic concerns were rated the highest stress level for all students, particularly the amount of material to learn (2.80±1.14), time demands (2.71±1.15) and overall stress (2.70±1.10). Stress levels between the various departments varied significantly (P=0.011), whereas the stress levels varied insignificantly between levels of training (P=0.856) and between male and female students (P=0.725). Conclusion: The study revealed academic concerns including the amount of material to learn, time demands of the course as well as financial issues as the greatest stressors among students. The findings of this study emphasize the need to organize stress management seminars or workshops upon admission into the respective programmes.
All authors who submit their paper for publication will abide by following provisions of the copyright transfer: 1. The copyright of the paper rests with the authors. And they are transferring the copyright to publish the article and used the article for indexing and storing for public use with due reference to published matter in the name of concerned authors. 2. The authors reserve all proprietary rights such as patent rights and the right to use all or part of the article in future works of their own such as lectures, press releases, and reviews of textbooks. 3. In the case of republication of the whole, part, or parts thereof, in periodicals or reprint publications by a third party, written permission must be obtained from the Managing Editor of JPRM. 4. The authors declare that the material being presented by them in this paper is their original work, and does not contain or include material taken from other copyrighted sources. Wherever such material has been included, it has been clearly indented or/and identified by quotation marks and due and proper acknowledgements given by citing the source at appropriate places. 5. The paper, the final version of which they submit, is not substantially the same as any that they had already published elsewhere. 6. They declare that they have not sent the paper or any paper substantially the same as the submitted one, for publication anywhere else. 7. Furthermore, the author may only post his/her version provided acknowledgement is given to the original source of publication in this journal and a link is inserted wherever published. 8. All contents, Parts, written matters, publications are under copyright act taken by JPRM. 9. Published articles will be available for use by scholars and researchers. 10. IJPRM is not responsible in any type of claim on publication in our Journal. .