A Survey to Evaluate the Examination Stress of Physiotherapy Undergraduates of Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

Introduction Stress is described as anything that causes a challenge or a threat to our well-being and stressors are the agents or stimuli in our environment that causes stress. During the years of university life, students are exposed to different kinds of stress, especially during the difficult studying periods like examinations weeks. Materials and methods In this analytical study, we intended to evaluate the stress level of physiotherapy students during their semester end examination period in 2017. Level 1000, 2000 and 3000 students (86) were included as the total sample. The students were asked to answer a questionnaire which was focused on their fatigue, atmosphere, handling day to day problems, sleeping patterns, studying patterns, preparation for the exams and the way that they faced for the examination. The data has been collected at the last day of the examination period, i. e. after the examination is over. Participants were answered the questions individually without any interruption. Results and discussion There were 30 questions in the questionnaire and four point Likert scale (0 = 20 %, 1 = 40 %, 2 = 60 %, 3 = 80 % stress level) was used to calculate the individual stress values. Mean stress value of the total sample was 44.43 with a standard deviation of 11.77. According to the different study levels, in level 1000, mean stress value was 41.82, level 2000 44.77 and level 3000 46.55. Conclusion Males were more stressed compared to females in total sample. Stress values are increased according as the students were upgrading from level 1000 to 3000. According to the gender and study level, in level 1000 and 2000 males are more stressed compared to females but in level 2000 females are more stresses compared to males.