Perceived Stress Among Chinese Medical Students Engaging in Online Learning in Light of COVID-19

After a year of the COVID-19 pandemic, countries have repeatedly imposed strict quarantine regimes as the virus mutates and becomes more contagious. Medical undergraduate education has been disrupted and transformed into prolonged home isolation and online learning. Although studies have reported that the COVID-19 pandemic tends to increase perceived stress (PS) and affect the mental health of medical students, the influencing factors are unclear. Therefore, based on the stress process model, this study will comprehensively evaluate the distribution of stressors of medical students and explore the personal and environmental predictors of PS during the epidemic.

An online survey was conducted among medical students (n=369) from three medical universities in western China who engaged in online learning. A stress process conceptual framework was formed to explore the influencing factors of PS. The survey items contained four sections: (a) the potential stressors derived from academic, psychosocial and health-related demands; coping resources such as (b) online learning environment support and (c) personal resilience, including online learning behavior and individual characteristics; and (d) PS, perception of imbalanced demands and coping resources.

The mean PS score was 17.39 (SD=4.58), and over four-fifths (82.3%) of the students had moderate to high levels of stress. The average item scores of academic, psychosocial and health-related stressors were 2.72 (SD=0.55), 2.31 (SD=0.55) and 2.07 (SD=0.50), respectively. Gender, grade, psychosocial stressors, health-related stressors, specific online learning behavior (persistence, attitude and flexibility), and the online learning environment (teaching, social and cognitive presence) were predictors of PS.

Our results specify that a reduction in psychological and health-related stressor stimulation, specific online learning behavior promotion, and well-established online learning environment support could be considered essential for alleviating the negative impacts of COVID-19 on the psychosocial health of medical undergraduates.