The ways to overcome stress in student learning activity

Abstract

Background. Stress is an integral part in the life of a contemporary man. The problem of stress is especially acute in the field of higher professional activity. Student learning activity has been always associated with a high level of stressful tension. In case of a long stress effect and when students do not have skills of its positive overcoming, stress can result in occurrence of psychosomatic diseases, non-psychosomatic psychic disorders (NPD), formation of educational neglect, disorders of personality and professional development of the personality, which stipulate the topicality of the given work.
 Objective – to examine the ways of overcoming stress among students depending on NPD available, gender and the course of education.
 Materials and methods. 1235 students of both genders were examined comprehensively including 852 students (68,99%) from the Higher State Educational Establishment of Ukraine “Bukovinian State Medical University” and 383 students (31,01%) from Yuriy Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University. An average age of those involved in the study was 20,15±0,05. The following methods were applied: clinical, psychodiagnostic and statistical.
 Results. The conducted study found that most often students used the following means to overcome stress: sleep – 70,35% and 71,24% in І and ІІ groups respectively; walking in the open air – 58,99% and 60,02%; tasty food – 58,04% and 52,51%; communication with friends – 56,78% and 57,41% (р≥0,05). A reliable majority of students with NPD during the first examination indicated that they used cigarettes as a means to get over stress (34,38%) against 13,18% of students without NPD, and alcohol (26,81% and 13,73% respectively) (р<0,05).
 Conclusions. Therefore, the conducted study did not find any reliable gender differences in the choice of means to get over stress. The number of smoking students increases with every next year getting its maximum at the 4th year of studies. It decreases a little at the 5th year which should be considered in planning of preventive and therapeutic measures. Our comprehensive treatment of students with NPD reduced the rate of smoking 2,09 times, from 33,80% to 16,19% (р<0,05), which is indicative of its high effect.