Examination stress among medical students: prevalence causes and prevention

There was executed the study including the examination of 833 students of 2-6 courses of the medical University concerning their subjective rating of the stress level on exams, its causes and the measures they used to reduce stress. 26.7% of students noted the high level of stress on examination, there was significantly increased the number of students with low-stress levels in students оf 3-4 courses, boys, and students with good and excellent grades note significantly less a high level of examination stress. The most common manifestations of stress are changes in the cardiovascular system (62% of the students) and autonomic nervous systems (48.6%), these manifestations were significantly less noted in students with good and excellent grades. In the course of training, there was discovered the increase in complaints of the frequent urination, loose stools and discomfort or pain in the abdomen. The main causes of stress at exams, according to students, there are a large amount and difficulty of exam material and the insufficient addressing of examination tasks in the classroom. In the dynamics of training, there is a significant reduction in the number of students who believe early acquaintance with the exam questions to be important, the sufficiency of the time devoted to self-education and an increase in the number of students recognizing it is necessary to reduce the waiting time of the call to the exam. Most popular methods of the reducing examination stress on younger courses are the use of rites, superstitions, and drugs, in the senior years. A growing number of individuals using the techniques of autogenic training was discovered. 49.9% of students do not fight with stress. 63.9% of students consider the introduction of elective subjects of “Prevention and correction of examination stress in students” to be necessary.