A study on the relationship between time engagement in extracurricular activities and perceived stress of clinical medical students

Abstract

Objective To investigate the current status of clinical medical students' time engagement in extracurricular activities and its association with perceived stress, so to provide reference for promoting the moral, intellectual and physical development of clinical medical students as well as promoting the professional level of extracurricular activities in medical universities in China. Methods In December 2018, altogether 940 students of clinical medicine major in a medical university enrolled in 2017 were investigated. General information questionnaire, extracurricular activities time engagement questionnaire of medical students and 10-items perceived stress scale were used to conduct questionnaire survey. The relationship between time engagement of extracurricular activities and perceived stress of medical students was analyzed by orderly logistic regression. Results The medical students, 26.4% (181/686) and 18.2% (125/686) of them, spent more than 20 hours per week on extracurricular study and leisure and recreation, 73.0% (501/686) of the students spent less than 5 hours per week on physical exercise, 54.1% (371/686) of the students did not devote their time to volunteering. The perceived stress score of students was 17.00 (13.00, 20.00). After controlling personal and family characteristics, the results of ordinal logistic regression analysis indicated that the ones with high perceived stress devoted less time to extracurricular learning (OR=0.55, 95%CI=0.36~0.85), volunteering (OR=0.42, 95%CI=0.25~0.68) and exercising (OR=0.61, 95%CI=0.38~0.99). Conclusions Clinical medical students showed a low level of perceived stress. Perceived stress has a significant negative impact on students' time engagement in extracurricular learning, volunteering and physical exercise. Medical schools should focus on maintaining low level of perceived stress among clinical medical students. Key words: Medical students; Extracurricular activities; Time engagement; Perceived stress; Ordinal logistic regression