Posts Tagged ‘stress’
Self-development groups reduce medical school stress: a controlled intervention study
Background:
High stress levels and mental health problems are common among medical students, but there is a lack of studies on group interventions that aim to reduce such distress during medical school.
Methods:
A full class of students (n = 129) participated in group sessions during their third year of medical school in Bergen, Norway. The subsequent third-year class (n = 152) acted as control group, in order to create a quasi-experimental design. Two types of group intervention sessions were offered to the first class. One option was self-development groups led by trained group psychotherapists. Alternatively, students could choose discussion groups that focused on themes of special relevance to doctors, led by experienced general practitioners. The intervention comprised of 12 weekly group sessions each lasting 90 minutes. Data were gathered before the intervention (T1), and three months post intervention (T2). Distress was measured using the Perceived Medical School Stress (PMSS) and Symptom Check List-5 (SCL-5) assessments.
Results:
The intervention group showed a significant reduction in PMSS over the observation period. The subsequent year control group stayed on the same PMSS levels over the similar period. The intervention was a significant predictor of PMSS reduction in a multiple regression analysis adjusted for age and sex, beta = -1.93 (-3.47 to -0.38), P = 0.02. When we analysed the effects of self-development and discussion groups with the control group as reference, self-development group was the only significant predictor of PMSS reduction, beta = -2.18 (-4.03 to -0.33), P = 0.02. There was no interaction with gender in our analysis. This implicates no significant difference between men and women concerning the effect of the self-development group. There was no reduction in general mental distress (SCL-5) over this period.
Conclusion:
A three-month follow-up showed that the intervention had a positive effect on perceived medical school stress among the students, and further analyses showed this was due to participation in self-development groups.
Intraoperative Awareness Linked To Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
Patients with confirmed episodes of consciousness during surgery have high rates of psychological problems including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), even several years after the incident, reports a study in the March issue of Anesthesia & Analgesia, official journal of the International Anesthesia Research Society (IARS)…
Stress: Don’t let it grind you down
People who are stressed by daily problems or trouble at work seem to be more likely to grind their teeth at night. Researchers studied the causes of “sleep bruxism,” gnashing teeth during the night, finding that it was especially common in those who try to cope with stress by escaping from difficult situations.
Flu-Induced Stress Response Is Critical For Resistance To Secondary Infection
A new study reveals how infection with the influenza virus impacts the way that the immune system responds to subsequent infections. The research, published by Cell Press in the February 18th issue of the journal Cell Host and Microbe, provides a new understanding of the physiological and pathological consequences of the flu…
Perceived Stress, Sources and Severity of Stress among medical undergraduates in a Pakistani Medical School
Background:Recently there is a growing concern about stress during undergraduate medical training. However, studies about the same are lacking from Pakistani medical schools. The objectives of our study were to assess perceived stress, sources of stress and their severity and to assess the determinants of stressed cases. MethodsA cross-sectional, questionnaire-based survey was carried out among undergraduate medical students of CMH Lahore Medical College, Pakistan during January to March 2009. Perceived stress was assessed using the perceived stress scale. A 33-item questionnaire was used to assess sources of stress and their severity.Results:The overall response rate was 80.5% (161 out of 200 students). The overall mean perceived stress was 30.84 (SD= 7.01) and was significantly higher among female students. By logistic regression analysis, stressed cases were associated with occurrence of psychosocial (OR 5.01, 95% CI 2.44-10.29) and academic related stressors (OR 3.17 95% CI 1.52-6.68). The most common sources of stress were related to academic and psychosocial concerns. ‘High parental expectations’, ‘frequency of examinations’, ‘vastness of academic curriculum’, ’sleeping difficulties’, ‘worrying about the future’, ‘loneliness’, ‘becoming a doctor’, ‘performance in periodic examinations’ were the most frequently and severely occurring sources of stress. There was a negative but insignificant correlation between perceived stress and academic performance (r = -0.099, p>0.05). ConclusionA higher level of perceived stress was reported by the students. The main stressors were related to academic and psychosocial domains. Further studies are required to test the association between stressed cases and gender, academic stressors and psychosocial stressors.
Relationship of creative projects in anatomy to medical student professionalism, test performance and stress: an exploratory study
Background:
The anatomy course offers important opportunities to develop professionalism at an early stage in medical education. It is an academically significant course that also engenders stress in some students.
Methods:
Over a three-year period, 115 of 297 students completed creative projects. Thirty-four project completers and 47 non-completers consented to participate in the study. Projects were analyzed for professionalism themes using grounded theory. A subset of project completers and non-completers were interviewed to determine their views about the stress of anatomy and medical school, as well as the value of the creative projects. We also compared test performance of project completers and non-completers.
Results:
Projects completed early in the course often expressed ambivalence about anatomy, whereas later projects showed more gratitude and sense of awe. Project completers tended to report greater stress than noncompleters, but stated that doing projects reduced stress and caused them to develop a richer appreciation for anatomy and medicine. Project completers performed significantly lower than non-completers on the first written exam (pre-project). Differences between groups on individual exams after both the first and second creative project were nonsignificant.
Conclusions:
For some students, creative projects may offer a useful way of reflecting on various aspects of professionalism while helping them to manage stress.word count: 206
Researchers Develop An Integrated Treatment For Veterans With Chronic Pain And Posttraumatic Stress
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have resulted in a growing number of soldiers evacuated to the United States for comprehensive care for physical and psychological trauma. Given the number of physical injuries often experienced by soldiers, it is not surprising that chronic pain is a frequent problem among returning soldiers from Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.
Integrated Treatment For Veterans With Chronic Pain And Posttraumatic Stress Developed By Researchers
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have resulted in a growing number of soldiers evacuated to the United States for comprehensive care for physical and psychological trauma. Given the number of physical injuries often experienced by soldiers, it is not surprising that chronic pain is a frequent problem among returning soldiers from Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom (OIF/OEF).
Emotional intelligence and perceived stress in healthcare students: a multi-institutional, multi-professional survey
Background:Emotional intelligence (EI) is increasingly discussed as having a potential role in medicine, nursing, and other healthcare disciplines, both for personal mental health and professional practice. Stress has been identified as being high for students in healthcare courses. This study investigated whether EI and stress differed among students in four health professions (dental, nursing, graduate mental health workers, medical) and whether there was evidence that EI might serve as a buffer for stress.MethodThe Schutte Emotional Intelligence and the Perceived Stress scale instruments were administered to four groups of healthcare students in their first year of study in both the autumn and summer terms of the 2005-6 academic year. The groups were undergraduate dental, nursing and medical students, and postgraduate mental health workers.Results:No significant differences were found between males and females nor among the different health professional groups for the Emotional Intelligence measure. Dental students reported significantly higher stress than medical students. EI was found to be moderately stable in test-retest scores. Some evidence was found for EI as a possible factor in mediating stress.Conclusions:While stress and EI showed a moderate relationship, results of this study do not allow the direction of relationship to be determined. The limitations and further research questions raised in this study are discussed along with the need for refinement of the EI construct and measures, particularly if Emotional Intelligence were to be considered as a possible selection criterion, as has been suggested by some authors.
Mental Coping Techniques Can Reduce Flu Stress, Says Disaster Mental Specialist
The mental and emotional stress caused by the presence of the new H1N1 influenza can be controlled, and there are steps you can take to reduce anxiety and improve your psychological and physical health during this outbreak, says Josh Klapow, Ph.D., a certified disaster mental health specialist and associate professor in the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Public Health.
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