International Journal of Medical Science and Research

authors
Shailaja Singh, Rutu Sanghavi, Aparna A Bachkaniwala

abstract
Background and Purpose: Stress is major problem among university and specifically, health care students, as it may influence academic performance and psychological wellbeing negatively. Physiotherapy interns suffer from high level stress related to clinical skills training. Coping mechanism help the students deal with the challenges arising from stress. so the purpose of this study is to assess perceived stress and coping behaviour strategies among physiotherapy interns. Methodology: A survey study was conducted by a random sampling method from different colleges of Surat city. A total of 72 participants, both male and female, in the age group 21–24 years participated in this study. Participants were asked to fill in a proforma containing the Perceived Stress Scale-10 (PSS-10) and the Coping Behaviour Inventory (CBI). Descriptive statistics were used to express the level of perceived stress and for the demographic data the Pearson correlation coefficient was used to correlate between the PSS-10 and CBI respectively. Results: Of the study population, 72% respondent reported Moderate level of stress, 22% reported low level stress and 6% reported high perceived stress. The greatest prevalent coping mechanism utilized by the interns is Problem Solving accompanied by Stay-Optimistic. There exists a significant positive correlation between the PSS-10 and CBI (p=0.05). Conclusion: The results of this study showed that Perceived stress of Physiotherapy Interns was moderate during internship. The most common coping behaviour adapted by physiotherapy interns was problem solving during their internship period.