The impact of stress management training on the copping style and perceived stress in medical students

Medical students experience a high level of stress, with potential adverse consequences on their academic performance. Stressors cannot be modified in numerous cases but student's abilities to cope with stressors should be upgraded. In this study, we investigated the effect of stress management training (As part of the Life Skills Curriculum in Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences) on perceived stress, coping style in medical college students and also persistence of the effect of training. This was a quasi-experimental study (before and after). The sample size was 35 medical students and included all of the second semester medical students. Sampling method was census. Stress management training included four two-hour sessions for four consecutive weeks. Assessment was carried out by use of Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-14) and Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS-21) in four steps (before, immediately, 3 and 6 months after classes). Collected data were entered into SPSS17 software and analyzed by paired t-tests., ANOVA and Tukey post hoc test. Before training, the mean value for perceived stress among students was 33.42 which decreased to 32.70, 31.50 and 29.22, after one, three and six months after training, respectively. We found significant differences in perceived stress only between the stages conducted before training and six months after training. (P-Value: 0.012). The dominant style of copping with stress in all periods was that of problem oriented but changes in a variety of styles in different periods were not significant. In this study, reduced perceived stress can be related to the training, but the role of confounding factors should be kept in mind. Lack of change in the students´ coping style after training can be attributed to short-term training and defective contents of the training. It seems that other factors such as students’ level of education and compulsory training can interfere with the results of this study. Therefore, further studies are required to carry out alterations in the life skill curriculum in Kurdistan University of medical sciences.