Stress and the undergraduates

To assess the psychological health of undergraduates during their initial entry to the University, and to identify common sources of stress in their lives.

All first year law and medical undergraduates were administered a series of questionnaires.

Of the 135 medical and 128 law first year undergraduates surveyed using the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) to measure psycho-emotional distress, 77 medical students (57%) and 69 law students (47.3%) scored above the traditional cut-off of 4/5 points. Law students had significantly lower (p < 0.05) Life-Events Scores (mean 40.62, SD 29.30) than medical students (mean 55.62, SD 31.70). There was no statistical significant difference between medical (mean 89.32, SD 18.36) and law (mean 93.39, SD +/- 19.76) students (p = 0.88) in Type A Behavioural Pattern (TAPB). Hostelites (n = 67) reported significantly higher (p < 0.05) LES (mean 56.22, SD +/- 28.17) than non-hostelites (n = 196, mean 45.40, SD +/- 32.04). The commonest life events experienced in the past twelve months by the students were: (1) Difficulty keeping up with reading (84.4%), (2) Increased amount of academic work (82.5%), (3) Difficulty in tutorials (66.5%), (4) Little time for personal activities (61.6%) and (5) Difficulties in lectures as well as (6) peer competition (each 46.8%). Law students cited more relationship problems, while medical students were more troubled by academic work. When faced with a problem, more than seven out of ten students would turn to friends and classmates for help. The other common avenues of support were the family, and religion. A substantial proportion of law (37.5%) and medical (31.1%) students preferred to keep their problems to themselves; significantly (p < 0.00001) more of them (72.2%) were high GHQ scorers than other students (high GHQ scorers 47.4%). Interestingly 27.8% of these students turn to religion for emotional support.

Health education programmes, mentorship and a reduction in information overload in the curriculum can be important strategies to enable undergraduates cope better with the demands of tertiary education.