PERCEIVED STRESS AND ASSOCIATED FACTORS AMONG UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS OF FACULTY OF PUBLIC HEALTH, HUE UNIVERSITY OF MEDICINE AND PHARMACY
Background: With the development of risk factors in modernizing the education system in Vietnam, stress among students is gradually increasing. Especially, among medical students there has been a high demonstration of stress. The main aim of this study was to identify associated factors of stress among first year undergraduate students of the Faculty of Public Health of Hue UMP. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted with a total sample of 209 first year undergraduate students of the Faculty of Public Health, Hue UMP. Data collection was undertaken using self-admistrative structured-questionnaire, which included five main parts: demographic characteristics, personal relationships; factors related to hobbies and studies; factors related to the study environment; and stress situation of students. Stress situation was measured using the perceived stress scale (PSS-14 items). The cut off point of 30 and above was used to identify the situation of high stress among the students. Chi-square test with 95% CI and mutiple logistic regression were implemented to examine factors related to high stress situation. Results: The percentage of high stress among students was 24.9%. The proportion of high stress of female students was 2 times higher than male students (OR= 2.3; 95%CI: 1.10 – 4.83). Students who lived in other provinces had a 2.8 times higher prevalence of high stress compared to those from Thua Thien province (OR=2.83; 95%CI: 1.19 – 6.73). Related factors of high stress status included: (1) personal relationships (having close friends or not, difficulty in relationships with friends, difficulty in social activities) and (2) factors related to study environement (academic stress; aspiration of retaking the enrollment examination of entering university, difficulty in finding reference documents for study, difficulty of approaching new learning methods). Conclusion: High stress situation was common among first year undergraduate. Personal relationship and factors related to study environement were significantly associated with high stress situation among the students. Key words: Stress, Public Health, undergraduate first year student, Hue UMP