Sources and level of stress among college students: a study conducted in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

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Background: Stress is inevitable. Mild level of stress is needed for better performance among individuals. Nursing and medical undergraduates experience high levels of pressure during their college when compared to students in other arts and science specialties. Numerous factors of stress among applied medical students may be theoretical, intrapersonal, interpersonal, and environmental. The objective of this study was to assess sources and level of stress by college of applied medical undergraduates.Methods: A descriptive study was conducted among the female college of applied medical sciences, Prince Sattam Bin Abdul-Aziz university, Wadi Al Dawasir, Saudi Arabia. A study sample of 72 female students of nursing and medical lab sciences were selected using random convenient sampling technique. Primary data was collected using a questionnaire related to sources of stress distributed among the students. Results: The results revealed that 11 (15%) of students had mild level of stress, 51 (56%) of them had moderate and 21 (29%) of them had severe level of stress. Intrapersonal stressors with the mean value of 2.09 (sometimes), interpersonal stressors mean value is 2.0 (sometimes), environmental stressors mean value is 1.4 (never), and academic stressors mean value is 2.5 (often) disturbing stressors for the students.Conclusions: The university should maintain conducive academic environment for better learning, with the focus on the students’ personal and social needs. The administrators should provide adequate resources such as books, computers to do assignments. Nursing college administrators need to take effort to narrow the gap between student’s opportunities, goals, and values to be integrated with that of the university.