Investigating Knowledge, Stress Prevalence, and Stressors in Relation to Stress and Stress Management Practices among Medical Students in Saudi Arabia
[Thesis]
Alshahrani, Waleed
Kent State University
2019
245
Ph.D.
Kent State University
2019
The purpose of this study was to investigate stress knowledge, stress prevalence, the source of stress, and intention of future practice of stress management techniques (SMTs) among medical students in Taif University (TU), Saudi Arabia by gender and grade cohort. In addition, this study examined the predictive value of knowledge, attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived control of stress to the intention of stress management practices. This study aimed to create a sense of how these independent and dependent variables worked together to construct predictions about students' behavior in regard to stress management practices. The significance of this study was to provide administrators, staff, and faculty with enough information about its medical students' stress prevalence and their perceptions of stress. Findings from this study assist to recognize and understand the difficulties as well as health issues of TU medical students' lives. These findings revealed the overall stress prevalence was high among TU medical students as compared to other or similar populations in Saudi Arabia and Middle Eastern countries. Among students who had high stress, attitude, subjective norm, and behavioral perceived control scores were found statistically significant predictors of intention to practice SMTs. On the other hand, among high-stress students who never practiced SMTs, stress knowledge, attitude, subjective norm, behavioral perceived control, demographic and stressor scores were tested and only behavioral perceived control and gender were found statistically significant predictors of intention for practicing SMTs. Surprisingly, the environmental, family and academic stressors were not found significant predictors of intention.