Abstract:
This study was conducted to predict stress among undergraduate medicine students and an
examination of coping and social support. Across-sectional design using a quantitative research
approach was employed. Stratified random sampling was used to select 270(171 male and 99
female) participants from the target population after stratifying by gender and year of study. Data
were gathered through a self-administered questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive statistics
(frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, and Regression) and inferential statistics (One
-way ANOVA, post hoc test and Independent Samples t-test). Results of this study shows,
prevalence rate of stress were 30.2%. While the current prevalence rate of second, third, fourth,
fifth and sixth-year students were 13.7%, 17%, 16.3.%, 20.4% and 32.6 % respectively. The
results of multiple regression analysis were found coping as the strongest predictor (β= 0.109, p<
.05) and social support (β=.002, p<0.05) significantly predicts stress. The results of Independent
samples t-test have shown that significant mean difference in stress (t (268) = 2.92, p<0.05)
among male and female participants. Therefore, there is a need to increase students’ awareness
on the potential impacts of stress, especially final year students, and also promoting social
support, effective and healthy coping strategies to manage their stress. Future studies better to
focus on the ways of preventing stress, promoting social support and healthy coping styles
among undergraduate medicine students.
