Impact and Amount of Academic Self-efficacy and Stress on the Mental and Physical Well-Being of Students Competing in the 4th Olympiad of Iranian Universities of Medical Sciences

Abstract

Introduction: Studying mental and physical health and their determinants is an important issue, especially among future health providers.Methods: This is a sectional-analytical study whose target population was students who had participated in the 4th National Olympiad of Medical Sciences Universities in Tabriz, Iran, held in February 4-7 2013.Web-based designed questionnaires were sent to all 328 participating students’ emails containing our questionnaires that were designed as web-based through Google Drive was sent to all available email addresses of our target population. Questionnaires consisted of student life stress inventory (SLSI), SF-36 (Short Form Health Survey), and College Self-Efficacy Inventory (CSEI), which were translated to Persian and revalidated. The data were analyzed using SPSS ver.19 software.Results: 59 students completely filled the questionnaires and enrolled in the study. In the area of student life stress inventory, the total score of the participants ranged from 79(13.73%) to 168(63.73%) with a mean of 130.74(40.05%) and SD of 21.51(10.84%). On the college self-efficacy scale, participants’ scores ranged from 62(40.79%) to 152(100%) with a mean of 114.29(77.10%) and SD of 22.82(14.20%). On the Sf-36 form, participants scored 72.28±14.09% on average (Min=44.03%, Max=98.75%). The Spearman correlation coefficient test indicated that all correlations between variables were statistically significant (p<0.001). Conclusion: It can be concluded that adopting additional methods to increase self-efficacy and decrease stress amongst medical students in the academic population will lead to improved mental and physical health, which can help national improvement of science.

Keywords: Self-efficacy, Stress, Health, Well-being, Olympiad, Medical science students