Study of perceived stress and emotional intelligence among 1st year medical undergraduates in India

Abstract

Aditya Gupta, G.D. Koolwal, Sanjay Gehlot

Recently stress during medical training is increasingly being reported in published literature especially in 1st year students. The potential negative effects of emotional distress on medical students include impairment of functioning in class-room, stress-induced disorders and deteriorating performance. So the present study aims to assess the level of perceived stress and emotional intelligence, and to find a relation between Emotional Intelligence and level of perceived stress in 1st year medical undergraduates. The present study was undertaken at Dr. S.N.M.C Jodhpur, affiliated to Rajasthan University of Health Sciences (RUHS), Jaipur, taking 1st year medical undergraduates as study sample. The tools used for this study were Perceived Stress Scale10 (PSS-10) and Emotional intelligence scale (E. I. S.) by Hyde and Pethe. Data was obtained from 122 out of 150 students, who voluntarily completed all the questionnaires. No significant differences were found between males and females for the Emotional Intelligence and Perceived Stress measure. A negative correlation was found between emotional intelligence and perceived stress. The present study shows that as the emotional intelligence increases, the level of perceived stress decreases. Future research should explore other factors that predispose students’ experiences of stress and enable their management of it.