Stress and influencing factors of public health and preventive medicine students in the post-pandemic period: a cross-sectional study in Changsha, China

Frontiers in Public Health

Public Health

Xiaofen Wang¹  Na Yang¹  Pingping He¹  Jiahui Zhang¹  Miliang Zou² 

[1] Department of Nursing, School of Medicine, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China;Department of Oncology, The Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, China;

关键词: post-COVID-19 era;    public health;    preventive medicine;    stress;    influence factor;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpubh.2023.1227441

 received in 2023-05-24, accepted in 2023-07-20,  发布年份 2023

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

ObjectivesLittle is known about the stress levels and associated factors of public health and preventive medicine students in the post-pandemic period. This study aims to investigate the stress levels of these students in the post-COVID-19 era and to determine the association of personal background, employment attitude, and psychological state with stress.MethodsA cross-sectional survey was conducted in March 2023 among 620 public health and preventive medicine students from two universities in Changsha, China. The survey included demographic characteristics, employment attitudes, perceived stress scale 10, general anxiety disorder 7, the University of California at Los Angeles loneliness scale 20, and the PTSD checklist-civilian version. Two-sided t-tests and ANOVA tests were used to compare the differences in PSS scores among variables, and multiple hierarchical regression analysis was used to evaluate the associated factors with stress.ResultsThe survey was completed by 504 students (mean age: 21.5 ± 2.6 years, 69.2% female). 24.8% of the students were screened for a high level of stress. 69.0% thought the epidemic positively impacted employment while 18.5% believed it had a negative impact. The results of regression analysis showed that older age (B = 0.42, p = 0.001), higher grade (B1=3.59, p < 0.001, B2=4.57, p < 0.001), having internship experiences (B = 1.16, p = 0.006), having anti-epidemic experiences (B = 1.77, p < 0.001), believing that COVID-19 has a negative impact on employment (B = 2.56, p < 0.001), and having higher GAD scores (B = 0.64, p < 0.001) and UCLA scores (B = 0.07, p = 0.002) were significantly associated with high-stress levels. Conversely, being female (B = −1.64, p < 0.001) and believing that the pandemic had a positive impact on employment (B = −1.98, p = 0.001) were associated with low-stress levels.ConclusionPublic health and preventive medicine students in Changsha, China, experienced a high-stress level in the post-pandemic period, which was influenced by age, gender, grade, employment attitude, internship experience, anxiety, and loneliness. As one of the main guardians of the epidemic, these students should be given more attention and psychological interventions in the future.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
Copyright © 2023 Wang, Zhang, Yang, Zou and He.