Factors Affecting Stress in Students, Faculty of Pharmacy, Mahidol University

Abstract

This study aimed to measure stress levels of pharmacy students and investigate factors which influence pharmacy students’ stress at Mahidol University using the self-administered online questionnaire. The data were collected from 745 of first to sixth year students in 2018 academic year of the Faculty of Pharmacy, Mahidol University. The tool to measure stress was adopted from the stress assessment form of the Department of Mental Health, Ministry of Public Health (SPST-20) and the Rosenberg self-esteem test. Descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis were used to analyze data. There were 379 responses of first to sixth year students (97.2% response rate of calculated sample size); and the mean total stress score was 48.82±12.76 of 90.00 which defined as high stress level. The highest stress score was observed in the 3rd year students following by 2nd, 4th, 6th, 1st and 5th year students, respectively. Factors influenced stress levels were family’s monthly income, parent’s marital status, sleep, relationship with friends and relationship with lecturer. The multiple regression revealed that sleeping time and level of self-esteem were significant predicting factors of the stress. Both factors negatively affected the stress of pharmacy students.