PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING, STRESS AND COPING STRATEGY AMONG UNDER GRADUATE MEDICAL STUDENTS

This is a cross sectional study done among second year undergraduate medical students . The study aimed to determine the prevalence of psychological well-being and psychological distress (i.e. anxiety, depression and stress) and to assess the different styles of coping strategies used by them. Among 110 students, 103 students included in the study .They were asked to complete General Health Questionnaire(GHQ) -12 items , DASS (Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale) - 21 Item and Coping Orientations to Problems Experienced (COPE) 28 Items to measure their psychological well-being, psychological distress and coping style respectively. Statistical analysis showed 48.5 percent of students has poor psychological well-being and 51.5 percent has good psychological well-being. In terms of psychological distress, 11.7 percent students has clinical depression, 30.1percent has clinical anxiety and 6.8 percent has clinical stress. Students used a combination of both emotion focused and problem focused style of coping strategies but emotion focused coping style dominates the coping style. Students with poor psychological well-being used significantly more denial, venting as their predominant coping style. Students with clinical anxiety has adopted self distraction , denial, venting , and humor as their predominant coping style .Students with clinical stress has adopted denial ,venting, self blame as their predominant coping style. Self blame is the coping style used mostly by students with both subclinical and clinical depression.In conclusion, significant proportion of second year medical students has psychological distress and poor psychological wellbeing. Maladaptive coping style is the coping style used by most of them. Therefore proper coping strategies should be introduced to equip the students with healthy stress management