Stress in two cohorts of medical students of the Luis Razetti School, Central University of Venezuela

Stress is considered as an interactive process between biopsychosocial events. Symptoms related to it, in medical students, may vary along their careers. Stress prevalence was compared between 1° and 5° year students, to establish if significant differences exist or not. This was a crosssectional, observational, non-experimental research. The universe was 481 individuals (cohort 2009-2010). In May 2010 a probabilistic, simple random, stratified sample of 116 students of 1° year and 88 of 5° at the School Luis Razetti was taken (total 204, 42 % of the universe). The evaluation instrument was a survey form consisting on general information, Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21) and the Graffar-Méndez-Castellano Social Stratification. The Software SPSS v.10.0, with a 95 % confidence level, was used for data analyses. Regarding the total DASS-21 score, from the evaluated students, 64.8 % presented normal stress levels and 6.7 % very severe stress levels. The Low to very severe stress levels prevalence in 1st year students was significantly higher than that presented in 5th year students (42.7 % vs. 27,8 %; P<0.05). Significant differences on stress frequency were evidenced between 1° and 5° year students, being higher in 1° year students; which can be due, among other factors, to the adaptation, occurred along the years, to situations that generate stress on their careers.