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Updated: May 13, 2026
Psychophysiological Stress Assessment Using Biofeedback
Published on: July 31, 2009
An assessment of psychological stress and symptomatology for didactic phase physician assistant students
William A Childers1, Ryan K May, Natalie Ball
1Marietta College Physician Assistant Program, Marietta, Ohio, USA. bill.childers@marietta.edu
Purpose:
The purpose of this study was to assess the amount of psychological stress experienced by didactic phase, physician assistant (PA) students.
Methods:
The Symptom Checklist-90-R (SCL-90-R) survey was administered to 81 students in 2011 during the first two didactic phase semesters at two PA programs. Using ANOVA and t-tests, several variables were analyzed for significance.
Results:
The SCL-90-R results portray that a significant proportion of the students from both programs reported elevated levels of stress during the first and second semester of the didactic year. Although several significant levels were noted throughout this study, it is not known how these scores from PA students would compare to other medical and/or nonmedical graduate students. Additional studies of stress from both medical and nonmedical graduate students would be beneficial for comparison to PA students.
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