The Medical Student Stress Profile: a tool for stress audit in medical training

OBJECTIVES It is well recognised that medical training can be extremely stressful and that high stress is a risk factor for a wide range of psychological and health-related consequences. The primary aims of this study were to introduce the Medical Student Stress Profile (MSSP) and to demonstrate its psychometric quality as a specific device for auditing medical student stress. Secondary aims were to establish the reliability, construct and criterion validity of this instrument and to explore the relationships between stress, coping, personality, motivation and emotional intelligence in medical students. METHODS A battery of self-report measures including the MSSP was administered to a sample of 239 undergraduate and graduate-entry medical students. The battery included indices of stress, coping with and proneness to stress, as well as measures of emotional intelligence, motivation style, personality traits, educational environment perception and self-reported symptomatology. Psychometric evaluation of the MSSP was conducted along with a correlation analysis of stress concomitants. RESULTS The MSSP revealed good psychometric properties and showed a substantial stress load in the participant sample. The pattern of correlations with concomitant measures conformed generally to expectations. Strong cohort effects were observed, which suggest the importance of future investigation into the role of the group in stress amelioration. Stress adversely affects ratings of the educational environment as measured by the Dundee Ready Education Environment Measure. CONCLUSIONS The MSSP was specifically developed for the medical training context and may have utility for individual and group stress audits of medical students and as a device to inform remedial programmes in stress management in medical education.